By Neil Evans
A promising four-year-old mare is set to return with a bang for her new stable at Monday’s feature Quirindi meeting.
Tornado Express, a lightly raced daughter of high-class sire Toronado, hasn’t started since finishing just behind the placegetters in a country Class 2 event in late May.
Tamworth trainer Cody Morgan.Credit: Peter Hardin
That ended her campaign with the Stephen Jones stable at Scone before spelling and heading north to the Cody Morgan yard at Tamworth.
Given the winter off, and plenty of time to reacclimatise, Tornado Express has worked through the line well in two recent trials up to 1000 metres.
She now returns for only her sixth career start in a Benchmark 58 Hcp over 1100m, but is aiming to improve her winning strike rate to 50 per cent.
In her first prep, she won back-to-back Maiden and CL1 races up to 1200m, each time charging over the top from well off the speed.
And she looks to have found an ideal first-up assignment at picturesque Quirindi, with promising young 2-kilogram claiming apprentice Shae Wilkes in the saddle.
A strong eight-race meeting on a firming track could prove to be a reliable country form reference for the remainder of spring.
And part of that could well come from a lightly raced provincial five-year-old who is eying off a metropolitan assignment if he can break through second-up in the feature BM 66 Hcp over 1450m.
Awesome Tycoon, from the Jason Deamer yard at Newcastle, looks well-placed over this distance after flooding home late in a CL2 over 1280m at Muswellbrook.
By prolific sire Written Tycoon, that was his first run since April when tackling much deeper company over further.
Supplied by Racing NSW
Full form and race replays available at racingnsw.com.au
