RACING
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Master South Coast horseman Bede Murray will send Hawkesbury Gold Cup winner Darci Be Good to the paddock for a short let-up, citing a lack of viable racing options for his multiple stakes winner.
The four-year-old, owned by a syndicate of Illawarra Turf Club members, snapped a year-long winless run when nabbing the $150,000 Group 3 race on Thursday evening.
But Murray was left scratching his head with where to take Darci Be Good next and will instead settle on the Group 2 Villiers Stakes (1600m) as his primary target at Warwick Farm on December 22.
“We had to run three horses in that race [on Thursday] because they’re rating 90 plus horses and there’s nowhere for them to go,” Murray said.
“They have no rating 90 races or rating 95 and no open handicaps. I would have liked to have run Darci last Saturday, but he would had to have carried 63 kilograms. It’s ridiculous.
“You’ve got those sorts of horses and the programming just doesn’t suit you.”
All three of Darci Be Good’s stakes successes have now come over the mile. He won the Fernhill Quality as a two-year-old, backing that up with success in Newcastle’s Spring Stakes as a three-year-old and in the Hawkesbury Gold Cup against the older horses.
“He’s gradually just worked his way into form. I think he just came right for [Thursday’s] race,” Murray said.
A light summer program with Darci Be Good won’t be too dissimilar to that of Paul Murray’s Alma’s Fury, who won three straight metropolitan races last campaign before returning to run third in the Doncaster Prelude in autumn.
Alma’s Fury finished seventh in the Hawkesbury Gold Cup on Thursday, one spot adrift of Bede’s World Wide.
Murray said he delivered aggressive riding instructions to former Kembla Grange apprentice Kathy O’Hara, who camped Darci Be Good just off the speed before letting loose just at the top of the cramped Hawkesbury straight.
“On that track he had to be ridden pretty aggressive,” Murray said.