Addington feature preview – Maurice Holmes Vase

A slightly delayed “Road To the Cup” kicks off on Friday with the running of the Maurice Holmes Vase at Addington.

It’s been a race that’s produced some strong efforts in the past with Christen Me capturing the title in 2014 and 2015 and Self Assured winning last year. The Dunn surname features strongly too with Dexter driving four winners of the event while John managed a 2019 triumph when guiding Classie Brigade.

From a punting point of view finding the victor on Friday seems a tough ask given there’s very little trial or exposed race form to go on with pandemic measures preventing any racing for some time.

Looking through the chances this year Di Caprio (Shadow Play–Pay Me Girl) comes out of a gritty enough 2^nd in a lesser field that went around in the Kurow Cup and his stand start manners tend to be very sound. His all-weather record lacks results but he demands respect considering he’s raced well in open company on a number of occasions.

The presence of both A G’s White Sock’s (Rock N Roll Heaven-Atomic Gold) and Classie Brigade (Bettor’s Delight-Trigirl Brigade) adds class and depth to the overall field with both horses enjoying good fresh-up racing records. Henry Hubert is another horse that’ll come into calculations if he’s able to step and find a position near the speed while the tough Kruizr (Rocknroll Hanover-Black Maire) seldom goes a bad race but is faced with having to potentially do some work mid-race from an outside barrier that could mean he settles towards the back of the field early.

All things considered it’s a good start to the lead in to the NZ Cup of 2021, does the field contain the NZ Cup winner of 2021?  I’d suggest a couple here hold decent ambitions going forward.

Ben McMillan