General News
28 October, 2021
Nominations released for Mortlake Cup
THIRTY-TWO horses are vying for a spot in this year’s Mortlake Cup field after Racing Victoria released nominations on Tuesday.
THIRTY-TWO horses are vying for a spot in this year’s Mortlake Cup field after Racing Victoria released nominations on Tuesday.
More than 330 nominations were received for the seven event card set for Sunday, with each race to carry a maximum of 10 horses and four emergencies.
Among the nominees for the $30,000 cup event were Aurora’s Symphony, Bazini and Only A Mother from the Symon Wilde stable, Peter Gelagotis-trained pair Adonis Kick and Nudge Bar and Saab Hasan’s duo Ladymane and Latin Beat.
Takumi (Aaron Purcell), Seawhatyouthink (Matthew Williams), Mangione (Andrew Bobbin) and Lunch Session (Paul Pruesker) are all nominated, as is Jamie Barry’s Southfield.
Under Oath (Henry Dwyer), Primitivo (Mick Bell), Royal Volley (Charlotte Littlefield), Yulong Rising (Amy McDonald) and Storms Colours (Anthony Chibnall) have all contested other country cups and are among the entries.
The remaining races on the card include 1100, 1300 and 1600 metre maiden plates, a benchmark 52 handicap over 1100 metres and a 2000 metre benchmark 58 handicap.
Club manager Karen Van Kempen said the club was pleased with the high number of nominations for the meeting.
“We’re pleased with the numbers but we can’t say too much more about them because of the unknown (with acceptances),” she said.
“I think the quality of the nominations for the cup is pleasing and is what you expect for a spring race.
“There seems to be plenty of horses around in the spring but we just have to wait and see with acceptances.
“The other events have all attracted good nominations and we’re pretty confident they will be full fields.”
Van Kempen once again confirmed crowds would not be in attendance despite restrictions again this Friday.
The club manager said the short time frame made it difficult to accommodate crowds of any type.
“We made our decision and we made it with the roadmap the government had provided (at the time),” Van Kempen said.
“It was going to be absolutely impossible with six days notice to turn that around and have crowds of any type.
“It was an easy decision (to stick with no crowds) and it would have been hard to get services because they had all been booked elsewhere.
“There’s no point having crowds if you can’t provide the services.”
Van Kempen said punters could still catch all the action on free to air tv courtesy of racing.com (channel 68).
Fields for the meeting will be released later today once acceptances close.