Belated return for Saint Patricks Day

Promising three-year-old Saint Patricks Day will make a belated return to racing at Doomben but trainer Chris Munce has yet to decide whether to keep him to his own age group.

Munce has entered Saint Patricks Day in a Class Six Plate over 1200 metres and a 1050m-race for three-year-olds in Saturday.

Saint Patricks Day was scheduled to take on older horses in a One Metro win race last Saturday.

Munce was quick to scratch the colt after looking at the weather radar and was proved right when the last six races at Doomben were washed out.

“I was happy to run on a soft track but when the rain came it wasn’t worth the risk,” Munce said.

“To send him around on a heavy track would have been too big an ask and could have flattened him for the future.

“At this stage he will go around in a Three-Year-Old race or the Class Six on Saturday. There is still plenty of time to get him ready for the summer and Magic Millions carnivals.”

Munce is keen to end Saint Patricks Day’s campaign with the $2 million Magic Millions Guineas in January and then head the winter carnival.

Saint Patricks Day was rated among the best two-year-olds in Queensland and won the Listed Dalrello Stakes before finishing fourth in the BRC Sires’ Produce Stakes at his most recent start on May 27.

He is one of 28 nominations for the Class Six Plate and among 18 in the three-year-old race.

The Ben Currie-trained Cantbuybetter is likely to contest the Open Handicap (1200m) on Saturday after his comeback race was among those abandoned.

Currie hopes Cantbuybetter can perform well enough to remain on course for the Group One Railway Stakes in Perth.

Robert Heathcote has put Hopfgarten in as a late entry for the open handicap and also has him nominated for the Filante Handicap at Randwick.