Hawkesbury Racing: Gold Cup Betting Tips

Panthers Hawkesbury Gold Cup 1600m – Group 3

The Hawkesbury Gold Cup is one of three Group 3 races on Hawkesbury’s only stand-alone Saturday meeting of the year.

A field of 16 is set to line up over the 1600m – Beaten Up has been scratched which allows first emergency KeepIt To Yourself to gain a spot in the field.

The track is currently rated a Good 4 but there is a bit of rain predicted for Sydney on Saturday so Hawkesbury may cop a bit of that too. I wouldn’t be surprised to see us racing on a Soft track come Cup time.

The speed in the race should be fairly genuine with Strawberry Boy and Ecuador engaged but there doesn’t appear to be many other horses that will take them on up front. That could mean the on-pace horses are favoured but races with Strawberry Boy or Ecuador involved genuinely get run at a good tempo.

I’m really only interested in about three or four horses here despite the large size of the field. There looks to be quite a few that won’t be at their best here for one reason or another, or just simply aren’t good enough.

Mighty Lucky is one of those horses that looks a genuine winning chance after his superb performance to win first up from a spell over 1400m at Randwick under 61.5kg. He’s won 3 from 6 when second up from a spell and you’d think the 1600m would suit him even better than the 1400m. His win last start was on a Soft 5 so if the rain comes he shouldn’t have any problems handling it.

Strawberry Boy comes up favourite for the race following a brave performance first up when he was defeated by Mighty Lucky. He’s got a great second up record and has 4 wins from 8 starts over 1600m too. He’s actually half a kilogram worse off at the weights against Mighty Lucky and from barrier 14 he will slide across in search of the lead. If he gets the race run to suit him he’ll be very hard to run down.

Sons Of John comes into this first up. You might remember him running 2nd to WINX when he was first up last prep, only going down by a nose over 1300m. That suggests 1400m first up will be no problem and that form line is very hard to look past. He’s another that won’t mind a bit of rain and from barrier 11 he will likely slot in somewhere in midfield or worse. He rates as a great chance.

Outside of those three it is hard to make a case for much else. Ecuador has had excuses at all three of his runs back from a spell – he’s raced wide without cover in every race. From barrier 6 he should get a much more economical run and he could bounce back to some form.

Others to consider could be Tales Of Grimm, who ran 2nd in this race last year and might be able to turn around his horror performance first up, and also Shoreham, who raced well last start and looks to be approaching some form.

Happy to back both Mighty Lucky ($11) and Sons Of John ($8.50) here, with a saver on the favourite Strawberry Boy ($5.50). That’s the way I’ll be playing it and I think there’s a fair bit of value in that.

1st SONS OF JOHN
2nd MIGHTY LUCKY
3rd STRAWBERRY BOY
4th TALES OF GRIMM

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