Splurge Ready to Take on Aussies

The New Zealand Herald reports:

Unquestionably, our horses are matching up to the Australians as never before.

But there is one golden rule - don't take a sprinter to Australia, they have the world's best.

In a modest way Splurge will attempt to put a dent in that adage in this afternoon's A$125,000 ($134,700) Brisbane Racing Club Sprint over 1350m.

And don't take our word he will give it a good shake, even the Australian TAB has him as the $4.60 favourite to achieve his goal.

Splurge has for a while given the impression he has what it takes to make it into the headlines, winning seven of his 11 starts, but none of those as impressively as his last-start victory at Te Rapa.

Under 59.5kg topweight he came from last, ran the 1200m on an officially slow track in 1.11.33 and eased back to nearly three-quarter pace in the closing stages.

It was the effort of a horse ready for Australian company.

To be fair, this is a mid-range Australian sprint line-up and Splurge, with Opie Bosson aboard, will be tough to beat with luck in running on the tight Doomben circuit.

It rained all night on Thursday and the likelihood of a slow track will not be a disadvantage - (Ed: note the track is now rated as Heavy on Saturday morning with continued rain) .