Horse Racing News: Trainer Searches for Dry Track to Showcase Stable Star
Trainer Seeks Ideal Conditions for Felix Majestic
(Sydney, June 25) In the hopes of finding a suitable dry track for his stable star, Felix Majestic, experienced trainer Gary Nickson has contemplated rare interstate excursions. However, the frustrated Warwick Farm-based trainer is now giving Sydney’s weather one last chance this weekend.
Felix Majestic’s lone nomination this Saturday is for the $160,000 benchmark 88 race over 1400 meters at the Randwick meeting. The four-year-old’s only start this campaign was a second-last placing in the Listed June Stakes (1100m) on a Heavy 9 track at Randwick on June 8, confirming the horse’s aversion to wet conditions.
Nickson had entertained the idea of taking Felix Majestic to Queensland for last Saturday’s $300,000 Group 3 Glasshouse Handicap, but the forecasted Queensland weather, which ultimately led to the meeting’s abandonment, deterred him. The trainer even considered a rare trip to Melbourne for a 1400m race this Saturday, before electing to keep the horse in Sydney, with fine weather predicted locally on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
“He is just hopeless on the wet tracks,” Nickson lamented. “I scratched him on the Wednesday from the Civic Stakes because the track was no good, and I brought him over here (to Randwick) on the Friday because they had one or two trials on the PolyTrack, and he went enormous.”
A son of Smart Missile, Felix Majestic has had 18 starts, recording six wins, all on Good tracks. He has one third-place finish from three Soft track runs and is unplaced from three starts on Heavy tracks.
With another missed run this weekend, Nickson may be forced to look westward in search of drier ground, with the $50,000 Forbes Cup (1600m) on August 4 a potential target for the frontrunning horse.
“In about four or five weeks’ time, there is the Forbes Cup, if he runs one-two there, he gets into the Big Dance,” Nickson said. “He’s a frontrunner, and it (Forbes) is a tight track. There are a few options.”
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