Attalea is enjoying a consistent run of form and Gulgong trainer Brett Thompson will be out to keep that going at Warren on Friday.
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Attalea, with two wins, a second and a fourth in his past four starts, will contest the Benchmark 62 Handicap (1400m) at the Warren and District Jockey Club’s annual twilight meeting.
However, the five-year-old is no certainty to race at Warren with Thompson also nominating gelding for Narromine’s meeting on Monday.
If he does race at Warren, he will be stepping up in grade and in a small field of seven, Attalea will jump from barrier six with apprentice hoop Chelsea Ings in the saddle.
Ings rode Attalea to victory at Dubbo Turf Club on Melbourne Cup Day.
There is a strong chance the winner could come from a Dubbo stable with Peter Reynolds’ Drummed Out to jump from barrier one with promising Dubbo-based apprentice Chris Williams onboard while Mark Jones and Dar Lunn also have hopes to saddle up.
Jones’ Nordic Noir is third-up from a spell and heads to Warren on the back of a last-start fourth at Orange’s Towac Park while Andrew Banks will ride Basic Strategy for Lunn.
The Benchmark 62 Handicap is one of six races on Friday, with the first jumping at 3.55pm.
The meeting’s last event will leave the barriers at 6.55pm.
That final race is a Class 1 Handicap raced over 1000m and Nyngan trainer Rodney Robb will have his mare Roses For Margo making a return.
The four-year-old won on debut at Parkes on June 10 but hasn’t raced since.
She is one of the 10 horses in the race of 14 which is returning from a spell.
Despite the late start, stewards are still taking every precaution when it comes to the expected high temperatures.
Racing NSW stewards have invoked Level 2 Racing in Hot Weather Policy for the meeting.
With temperatures expected to reach 38 degrees Celsius, stewards have reduced the required arrival time for horses to one hour prior to their respective race times, and will reduce parade times prior to each race, as well as ensure the provision of extra cooling systems, including hoses, ice buckets and the motorised cooling device.