Evergreen pacer Vultan Tin should make it a case of third time lucky when he contests the $25,000 Memorial Day Stakes over 2536m at Gloucester Park on Friday night.
The Phil Costello-trained nine-year-old has drawn perfectly at barrier one, and Emily Suvaljko will be keen to set the pace and win the event which was first run in 1961 when Bob Pollock drove Cormint to victory, and subsequent winners included such stars as Kiwi Dillon, Roscott, Tanaka, Pure Steel, Village Kid, Morgan James, My Current Account, Mysta Magical Mach and Hokonui Ben.
This will be Vultan Tin’s third attempt to win the Memorial Day Stakes. He started out wide at barrier eight and raced without cover before locking wheels and fading to eighth behind The Bucket List in 2019, and he started from the No. 3 barrier and failed to flatter at $61 when sixth behind Ocean Ridge 12 months ago.
However, he is in career-best form and he looks set to make amends for placings at his past three starts third behind Texas Tiger and seconds to Galactic Star and Stroke Of Luck.
Vultan Tin began from the outside in a field of seven in a 2130m Free-For-All last Friday night when he raced three wide early and then in the breeze before fighting on doggedly to fail by a neck to overhaul the pacemaker Stroke Of Luck.
He began from barrier No. 8 in a 2536m event the previous week when he raced wide early and then in the breeze before his half-head second to the leader Galactic Star.
One of Vultan Tin’s rivals this week will be ten-year-old Whozideawasthis, who has a splendid record in the Memorial Day Stakes, winning by four lengths from Futurist in 2018 and second to The Bucket List in 2019.
Whozideawasthis returned to top form last Friday night with a dashing last-to-first win over Lord Rosco over 2130. He will start from the outside in this week’s field of six and is capable of unwinding another strong finishing burst.
The Ross Olivieri-trained Im Full Of Excuses (barrier No. 4) is racing keenly and has finished third at each of his past three starts. Chris Voak predicted that Vultan Tin should prove hard to beat and said that Im Full Of Excuses’s best prospects would be from the breeze, at least over the final 800 to 900m.
