Queensland raider Amalgamation set to strike gold at Grafton

A border-hopping gelding who has only one victory since the autumn of 2023 is primed to produce his best at Monday’s Grafton meeting.

On what is a very open and testing program on a track likely to improve from heavy range into soft, six-year-old Amalgamation can land just his third career win from 31 starts in a wide open Benchmark 58 Hcp over 2220m.

Racing heads to Grafton on Monday with an seven-race card.Credit: Getty

An underrated son of prolific NZ sire Dundeel in the Gold Coast stable of Marcus Wilson, Amalgamation last tasted victory in a BM 62 at home back in mid-February.

Since then he’s been sparingly raced, although often going around in much tougher company than what he meets at Grafton on Monday.

Amalgamation was well beaten in two tougher assignments up to BM 85 level through autumn before spelling.

But after three quiet trials through winter, he’s shown steady progress in three runs back, culminating in a fast-finishing effort just behind the place-getters in a BM 66 Hcp over 2120m at Lismore 10 days ago.

And the stable has shown its hand, staying on the NSW North Coast in an encouraging 10-day back-up, and dropping down a level.

Jockey Damien Thornton retains the ride from a softer barrier for the gelding’s long list of owners.

His only prior success came with a Class 2 win at Ipswich in early May 2023.

Yet it’s hard to believe Amalgamation made his debut as a promising two-year-old in Saturday company at Flemington way back in May 2022 when in the Peter Moody stable.

But after setbacks and only two more runs later that year, he was transferred to the Ciaron Maher-David Eustace stable where he had just the one average run at Kilmore before being sent north to his new home on the Gold Coast.

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But throughout all the turmoil, the hope of a big race win has never gone away, remembering that in late May 2023 he tackled the Group 1 Qld Derby finishing a long way down the track behind star winner Kovalica.

Fast forward 28 months to this moderate yet very wide betting affair, and Amalgamation opened around $8.50 in early betting behind two other Gold Coast raiders in Giddy Gan’s Joy ($6.50) and Hurricane Rosie ($7.00).

In fact, nearly half the big field is from over the border, as a record percentage of South East Queensland runners for a mid-week NSW country meeting make the trip south.

Supplied by Racing NSW
Full form and race replays available at racingnsw.com.au

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