Te Akau Dual 3YO Attack

The Informant reports:

A year on from Xtravagant's dominant win in the Boxing Day three-year-old event at Ellerslie, the team at Te Akau Racing are hoping for a repeat result with Hall Of Fame and new recruit Kingsman.

Fresh from his eight-length win in the Gr. 1 New Zealand 2000 Guineas the previous month, Xtravagant lived up to expectations in last year's race as he led all the way and won with ease. He would later add a second Group One win in Te Rapa's NRM Sprint to clinch the award for New Zealand's champion three-year-old.

While neither of the Te Akau runners in this year's Conveyancing Shop Lawyers 1400 can match Xtravagant's credentials, trainers Stephen Autridge and Jamie Richards nevertheless have high hopes for the $50,000 race.

Hall Of Fame emerged as a budding star of three-year-old ranks earlier in the spring, scoring two dominant victories at Riccarton including the Listed Zacinto Stakes. However, he beat just one runner home in the 2000 Guineas as one of the leading fancies for the prestigious classic.

“We've been scratching our heads over his run in the 2000 Guineas,” Richards said. “We're still not quite sure what the reason was for that. It was a long way below his best.

“But he travelled home from Christchurch in really good order and he's looking great now. We couldn't be happier with his work. Hopefully he'll be back in his top form and very hard to beat.”

Darci Brahma colt Kingsman was formerly trained at Otaki by Johno Benner and Hollie Wynyard, who guided him to a third placing in the Karaka Million in January.

Kingsman's Te Akau debut was over 1000 metres at Te Aroha on November 23, where he finished sixth.

“We're still finding our way a bit with him,” Richards said. “We had planned to run him over 1300 metres in the Mufhasa Stakes, but he just had a little issue that forced him out of that race. That may have been a blessing in disguise - the freshen-up has done him a lot of good and his work has been excellent recently. We'd be disappointed if he didn't run a really good race.”

The field also features stakes performers Barcelo, Ichiban, Wyndspelle and Jon Snow along with a host of impressive last-start winners.