Cup fancies draw wide

Oct 18, 2013, updated May 12, 2025

Wide barriers have sent Caulfield Cup markets into a spin as the more fancied runners face tougher tasks in the Group One classic.

The top-rated Hawkspur drew barrier 16 but will start from 14 if the emergencies are not required.

While the wide draw is tough, it’s not impossible; six of the last 12 winners of the race started inside barrier 10, though three of the past four had barrier 13 or wider.

Hawkspur’s jockey, Jim Cassidy has won the Cup twice and appeared unfazed yesterday.

“It’s only a number,”‘ Cassidy said.

“I’ll worry about it on Saturday. I’m getting good reports about the horse and that’s the main thing.”

Hawkspur is on the drift, out from $4.20 to $4.50.

Second favourite Dandino got barrier 19 but will start from 16.

His jockey Craig Williams, who won from the outside alley on Dunaden last year, will need to produce another great ride if he is to complete a hat-trick of wins in the world’s richest 2400m turf handicap.

Two years ago he won on the Adelaide-trained Southern Speed.

Williams admits he flinched when his Caulfield Cup mount Dandino drew a wide gate but he is confident the international raider is the right horse for Saturday’s $2.5 million race.

“His form suggests to me he is the right form horse to come from Europe for our Group One handicap races,” Williams said on Thursday.

“I did flinch when draw 19 came up, so it just means he is going to need a lot more luck in the early part of the race.

“But he gives me great confidence going into the race, even from the wide draw.”

Dandino will come in three gates to barrier 16 if the emergencies don’t gain a start.

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Williams said Dandino, whose last race was his win in the American St Leger on August 17, appears to be more versatile than Dunaden when it comes to tactics for the big race.

“He responds very well to his riders so it gives me more confidence I can do a lot more things with Dandino in regard to tactics than the set plan we had last year with Dunaden,” Williams said.

“On paper there looks to be pressure – like every Caulfield Cup – from the first turn but from then on it’s how slow they go for the next six furlongs.”

With no South Australian runners in this year’s Caulfield Cup, the locals will be hoping for success in other races on the card.

The first of the South Australian runners in Melbourne will be Phillip Stokes’ promising galloper Hucklebuck, in race two, the Polytrack Gothic Stakes.

David Jolly’s hopes will be with his smart sprinting mare Avoid Lightning in the Carlton Draught Alinghi Stakes, the fifth race.

Most eyes will be on the David Jones Cup when Jake Stephens will be hoping his French import Gris Caro, can go one better after his last start second at Moonee Valley.

The final South Australian hope on the program is in the Yellowglen Tristarc Stakes in Race 9, when Molto Bene steps out for the strong Phillip Stokes team.

Back at Morphettville the feature event is the Listed Dominant Durbridge Stakes at 4.35pm.

Richard Jolly’s classy Karacatis is the pre-post favourite, a winner in five of his thirteen starts, including a great first up win in the recent W H Wylie Handicap.

Leon Macdonald and Andrew Gluyas will pin their hopes on Daytona Grey, who took out the main sprint race at Gawler on their Cup day.

That win was his seventh in eighteen starts, and like Karacatis, he carries a touch of class.

– with AAP

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