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Dumuzi looks nicely placed to bring up a home-town win at Rockhampton this afternoon after an ultra-consistent spring campaign.
Photo by Racing and Sports
The five-year-old Mark Barnham-trained gelding is back in grade and back in trip for the O’Reilly Dental Class 4 Handicap (970m) and looks well suited to pick up a fifth career win and his second at home.
He only narrowly missed in Class 6 grade at Mackay last start over 1200m, after hitting the front 250m from home before being outbobbed on the line by Diamondcowboy. The run netted a weight-adjusted Timeform rating of 68.
That performance came after a fourth placing at Doomben in a hot race on Melbourne Cup day which yielded a weight-adjusted figure of 78.
The third-placed horse in that race, handy Toowoomba galloper Golden Trinkets, has since come out and won by 3.5L in open fillies and mares Saturday grade at Eagle Farm, comfortably beating home proven Queensland metropolitan galloper Cuddlesome.
Suffice to say, Dumuzi should find this a bit easier than the last few races he’s contested.
He’s drawn a little awkwardly and might need some early luck but Dale Evans knows exactly how to ride this son of Dubawi, and will find himself perfectly placed if he can get himself across and just in behind the speed.
He knows how to ride the lengthy Rockhampton straight and he’s more than capable of holding the lot of these out.
There’s a few other interesting runners here which will tickle the punters’ interest, ideally lending to a more favourable starting price for Dumuzi.
Top weight Speeding Dragon is the obvious danger.
He picked up consecutive wins at this track, Emerald and the Gold Coast before his streak was broken when third in open grade on Cup day at Roma.
His Gold Coast win was particularly impressive producing a weight-adjusted Timeform figure of 73.
Today he’s been lugged with 60.5kg, 2kg of which are shaved off through Geoffrey Gould’s claim.
That’s a hefty impost but he carried 59kg when he won at the Gold Coast and shouldn’t have an issue with it.
He’ll be pushing forward from barrier six and no doubt will give them something to catch.
Mossetarsi is another runner who warrants some respect.
He’s resuming off a lengthy nine-month break but has a superb fresh record, and is unbeaten in two starts at this track.
His only win last campaign was across this track and distance but he’ll find this a little harder. He’s undergone a stack of gear changes and should be thereabouts with the post looming.
All Significant is fourth pick in a tricky race off an eight-week freshen-up. She won well here two runs back and has genuine claims.