On paper an outside barrier may not do Tyler Schiller too many favours when he rides import Boniface for the second time at Randwick on Saturday but based on that first experience he suspects it just might.
Boniface was narrowly beaten by Tazima, who he meets again in the Precise Air Handicap (1800m), and the close finish left Schiller wondering what might have happened had he not been dictated to by barrier one.
That won’t be an issue this time around though he’s wary he’ll still need to give Boniface a good ride. When he joined the winner it probably eased in on him and worried him out of it,’’ Schiller said.
“I would have loved to have got to its outside but it didn’t eventuate, I think if he gets to the outside he may run a different race. I suppose we’ll be able to see, where he’s drawn he possibly won’t be going underneath a horse.”
He’ll jump from no worse than 11 given that’s the capacity with the rail out 9m.
Boniface, $5 with TAB on Friday, is trained by Mick Price and Michael Kent Jnr and he strikes Schiller as a horse with plenty of upside, as you’d hope given he’s a northern hemisphere bred four-year-old with only seven starts to his name.
All three wins in France prior to arriving down under came on soft tracks and Schiller suspects he’s the type to handle heavy ground.
“He’s only a light framed horse so he’s not going to sink in the ground it’s whether he gets across the top of it,’’ he said.
“He’s a quality horse, feels like a nice stayer, he’s probably got to just learn his craft a bit. He was a little bit racy early the other day but I thought he handled himself well from the middle stages onwards and I felt like he ran it out strongly.”
The above article is written by Ray Hickson and can be found on Racingnsw.com.