Premier Darwin trainer Gary Clarke will look to add to his trophy cabinet with two live chances in the Great Northern Darwin Cup on Monday.
Eight going on nine-time successive premiership winning trainer Garry Clarke is confident his two horses Paghman and Reserve Street are more than capable of taking out Monday’s 2000m staying feature.
The pair have had a similar preparation so far, both entering the race third-up and poised to be thereabouts at the business end.
Paghman has seen the better support from the market compared to that of his stablemate, having gone heartbreakingly close in last years edition of The Cup beaten half a length by Ihtsahymn.
Paghman also went close again in the Alice Springs Cup when beaten a length by I Am The Fox who he meets 1.5kgs better at the weights this time around.
“I’m not taking anything away from the winner but maybe we were a little bit unlucky cause he never jumped. He was last out of the gates in Alice (Springs),” Clarke said.
“He (Paghman) is a good horse, he’s a horse that deserves to win a good race, he’s not a horse you have to bustle up to hold a spot early, he’ll just settle down and relax. He can just pop out of the gates and go to sleep for a while.”
Formerly trained by the Maher and Eustace team, Reserve Street although never being tested over the distance is a horse that Clarke believes sets up perfectly for the Darwin Cup in terms of preparation and should not be underestimated even with the wide draw.
“He is having his first crack at the 10 furlongs but they’re the type of horses I take for the Darwin Cup, you need more of a miler, a tough front running mile horse, they still need a bit of brilliance to position up through the race. I’m happy to have him in even though he is unproven over the 2000m,” Clarke said.
“I’m going to have to sit down with the jockey and work that one out (wide barrier) and go through the field. The best we can hope for is that a bunch go forward and that a bunch go back, and we hope we can just slot straight in the middle there.”
Paghman stands a $6.50 chance while Reserve Street is bit wider in the market at $19 with Tab.com.au.
Article from JustHorseRacing.com.au