Ray Hickson
It’s far from a glorious set-up but co-trainer Greg Lee is looking for a glorious return to racing by a horse he sees group 1 potential in at Warwick Farm on Wednesday.
The horse in question is Glorious Moments and Lee, and co-trainer brother Jim, will be banking on the talent he’s seeing in the gelding shining through from an outside alley in the Asahi Super Dry Handicap (1100m).
It’ll be his first run since posting successive wins last winter by dominant margins as his campaign was cut short when he required a minor bone chip operation and his return was further delayed when having to miss his planned first-up run earlier this month.
“He had a small chip on a joint, on the side not in the knee, so we had that taken out and instead of giving him three months we decided to give him a bit longer,” Lee said.
“It was only a minor thing that made us not run the other day, but it was enough to say we shouldn’t go ahead.
“He’s good as gold. I think he’s the best horse we’ve had since Hayai, and we’ve had some good horses. I think he could win a Doncaster.”
Glorious Moments trialled twice in open company in April, placing behind Beiwacht in the first and then Zealously, and James McDonald steered him around in a tick-over trial last Friday.
“James gave him an easy trial and he was very happy with him, and I was happy with him,” Lee said.
Given he sees Glorious Moments as a classy miler in the making, Lee hopes the outside barrier plays to his advantage with the sting out of the track over the shorter trip first-up as his two wins to date have come over 1250m and 1300m.
The four-year-old is not small so it could work against him if he needed to be dug up to hold a spot from an inside barrier.
“He’s better off out there, there’s only one corner and they’ll probably all head out that way and he’s already there,” he said.
“I am thinking much higher things for him so he would want to win. He’s a big horse and the weight won’t worry him.”
If Glorious Moments performs to the trainer’s hopes he’ll be headed for Queensland.
Best Bets: Race 3 (7) Hello Captain; Race 4 (11) Superfabulistic
Best Value: Race 2 (1) Portico.
Supplied by Racing NSW
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