Trainer Gary Hall
Highly-promising colt Beaudiene Boaz fared badly in the random draw and will start from the outside (No. 7) on the front line in the Snax Catering WA Derby Prelude over 2130m at Gloucester Park on Friday night.
But leading trainer Gary Hall sen. said that Beaudiene Boaz had the ability to overcome this disadvantage and to win and improve his record in Western Australia to five starts for five wins.
“After this race he will run in the Caduceus Club Classic the following Friday night, the Western Gateway (April 2) and WA Derby (April 17),” Hall said.
Beaudiene Boaz has not been extended in winning at his first four Gloucester Park appearances, working hard in the breeze in three of those races after starting from barrier five twice and barrier six. He drew the No. 1 barrier at his other WA start for an effortless all-the-way victory by six lengths.
Greg and Skye Bond have three runners in the race, Assassinator (barrier one), Denny Crane (four) and Ima Connoisseur (five) and Ross Olivieri has two runners, Military Master (six) and Artillery Major (the solitary runner off the back line). But, despite their good form (22 wins between them) they appear to have very little chance of causing an upset and toppling the brilliant Beaudiene Boaz.
Olivieri has very happy with Artillery Major’s excellent second to the Hall-trained Tact Major in a 1730m event at Gloucester Park on Tuesday afternoon when the winner rated 1.55.
Artillery Major raced three wide early before taking up the running and fighting on gamely to be second to Tact Major, the 5/2 on favourite who surged home from seventh at the bell.
Hall predicted that Tact Major would be an excellent second string to Beaudiene Boaz in the WA Derby, revealing the highly-promising Zennart was in the paddock.
He also hopes to have a leading Derby runner in the inexperienced American Boy, a gelding by American Ideal who arrived in Perth by plane from New Zealand on Sunday. American Boy has raced once, for an impressive two-length victory at a 1.59 rate over 2200m at Alexandra Park on February 20 when he dashed over the final 800m in 57sec. and the last 400m in 28.3sec.
Olivieri said he expected Artillery Major and Military Master to continue to improve. “Artillery Major is not there yet and is still on the way up,” he said. “I think he’s got more improvement in him, and that’s exciting.
“Right now I don’t think that either my colts would be disgraced in the Derby. But I don’t think that either can win. Both have got a fair bit of improvement left in them and are not yet at their top. However, somewhere along the line you’ve got to test the water, even though I think that Beaudiene Boaz is in a class of his own.”
