Australia: 2 Group 1 features are open for U.S. betting Friday

Art and music, refined themes inextricably woven throughout history, have inspired the names of the favorites in Friday night’s pair of Group 1 feature races in Sydney.

Post Impressionist and Orchestral are strongly fancied to win the Tancred Stakes (G1) and Vinery Stud Stakes (G1), respectively, on a 10-race card at Rosehill that includes six other graded stakes. Sydney’s autumn racing carnival continues its build-up toward The Championships at Randwick, where more than US$16.31 million in purses will be distributed across two cards next Friday and on April 12. For Friday night’s program, which begins at 9:30 p.m. EDT, fans are anticipating that Post Impressionist and Orchestral will prove aesthetically pleasing as well as financially rewarding.

The career of William Haggas, 63, has traversed the upper echelons of the sport since he won the 1996 English Derby with Shaamit. More recently, Haggas received worldwide acclaim as the trainer of Baaeed, winner of 10 from 11 career starts and the world’s top-rated turf horse in 2022. Concurrent to Baaeed’s European dominance, Haggas became a major player during Sydney’s lucrative autumn racing carnival in March and April.

Addeybb won a Ranvet Stakes (G1) and two Queen Elizabeth Stakes (G1) while having a series of memorable duels with the late, great Verry Elleegant. Dubai Honour swept the same pair of races last year, and Haggas has again identified the right horse to bring down under in 2024.

Post Impressionist’s Australian debut, in last weekend’s Manion Cup (G1) at 1 1/2 miles, was the first layer on the canvas of the two-mile Sydney Cup on April 12. There was nothing abstract about the quality of Post Impressionist’s performance: such was his dominance, the decision was quickly made to send him around again this Friday night in the US$980,000 Tancred Stakes. The 5-year-old gelded son of Teofilo is 3-2 favorite but, if one of the characteristics of post-impressionism was to distort form, it’s possible that everything is not as it appears when assessing the Tancred. The two originally planned races for Post Impressionist are handicaps, while the Tancred is weight-for-age.

A former European horse now in the Chris Waller yard, Buckaroo, is winless in four Australian starts but has competed exclusively in weight-for-age races, generally regarded as superior quality to handicaps. Like Post Impressionist, Buckaroo is on a one-week turnaround. However, he exits a third-place finish in the Ranvet Stakes behind yet another European invader, the brilliant mare Via Sistina, when making his move along the inferior inside section of the home stretch. Buckaroo (9-2) steps up a quarter mile in distance for his third race of this form cycle and is poised to peak. Post Impressionist’s visually spectacular finishing burst came against lesser opposition and needs to be reproduced at the same distance, in a race that is an afterthought en route to a two-miler.   

While not attaining the global profile of Haggas, New Zealand trainer Roger James has enjoyed an equally successful career on both sides of the Tasman Sea. Renowned for raiding Australian feature races, James seeks a second consecutive victory in the Vinery Stud Stakes at Rosehill this Friday night. His latest star is Orchestral, a filly James already rates on a par with the best racehorses he’s trained. From the stakes-placed mare Symphonic, Orchestral became the 33rd individual Group 1 winner for champion New Zealand sire Savabeel when she crushed colts in the New Zealand Derby (G1) a month ago.

The victory was a stakes-record sixth for Roger James in New Zealand’s best race for 3-year-olds, and Orchestral was immediately pointed towards Sydney’s riches. Friday night’s US$489,380 Vinery Stud Stakes, at 1 1/4 miles for fillies, is the traditional prep race to the million-dollar Australian Oaks on April 12. The Oaks, like the New Zealand Derby, is at 1 1/2 miles.

Orchestral will need to be finely tuned, as she faces a legitimate rival in Zardozi (3-1). The Godolphin filly captured the Victoria Oaks (G1) in Melbourne last November, in the first half of the southern hemisphere season, and powerfully won her second start from a layoff in the Phar Lap Stakes (G2) against colts a fortnight ago.

Among the six other graded stakes, an unusual level of interest surrounds the scratches in the ninth race, the Doncaster Prelude. The lightly raced, highly promising favorite, Another Wil, is first also eligible. He needs a scratch and a win to make the field for the US$2.61 million Doncaster Mile (G1) next Friday night at Randwick.

The Rosehill card will be broadcast live on FanDuel TV this Friday night, with first post at 9:30 p.m. EDT alongside cards from Wyong, Doomben and Beaudesert.

A native of Brisbane, Australia, Michael Wrona has called races in six countries. Michael’s vast U.S. experience includes; race calling at Los Alamitos, Hollywood Park, Arlington and Santa Anita, calling the 2000 Preakness on a national radio network and the 2016 Breeders’ Cup on the International simulcast network. Michael also performed a race call voiceover for a Seinfeld episode called The Subway.

Coverage of Rosehill for Horse Racing Nation is made possible through a sponsorship by Sky Racing World.