Roccia’s enigma: The wild card in Marton Cup

Uareastar winning the 2022 Auckland Cup. Photo / Trish Dunell

Whether talented mare Roccia is the horse to beat in today’s Marton Cup depends on what version of her turns up.

The enigmatic stayer is the $6 equal favourite for the $80,000 Cup at Hastings, the biggest race on a weekend that could be described as the calm between two storms after the dramas of Pukekohe in the last 11 days and the huge carnivals almost every weekend for the next two months.

The Cup brings together proven stayers like Uareastar, who won the Auckland Cup two years ago, against mostly handy lower-grade stayers who get the advantage of only having to carry 53kg, often the golden weight in our better-staying races.

Plenty get that luxury today with Roccia, Canheroc, and Never Look Back but the Roccia of two or three starts back would be the one to beat. For punters, that may mean ignoring her second last of 14 in the Dustan Stayers Final on Boxing Day.

Roccia didn’t have a lot go right that day and was outpointed by Canheroc who finished third, that form franked when winner Trust In You won the QEII Cup six days later.

But in her two starts before that Roccia was way too good for Canheroc so represents value today if she has her mind on the job.

“She can be a funny horse to predict,” says co-trainer Roger James.

“She likes things her own way a bit but Warren [Kennedy] gets on really well with her so we think she can bounce back.”

Canheroc has hit career-best form and had no luck in the stronger Waikato Cup two starts ago so appeals as a cover bet for those who like the lightweight theory but don’t totally trust Roccia.

The two other features at Hastings are an even open 1400m while the three-year-old race (R4) has several with black-type aspirations over the summer with Roccia’s stablemate Sudbina having the best stakes form but the worst draw.

Young guns return

Two of New Zealand’s more promising young jockeys are returning home on Sunday to further boost the local riding ranks.

Wiremu Pinn and partner Tayla Mitchell have been based in Melbourne this season but while Pinn has had good support, Mitchell, who won the NZ apprentice premiership, has struggled to get her licence to race ride in Victoria.

“Tayla still really wants to ride and I want to support that so we made the decision together to move home,” Pinn told the Herald.

“We come back on Sunday and will be based in Cambridge, with Chris McNab booking my rides.

“I’m available from the Matamata meeting on Wednesday while Tayla will have some trial rides and then be back into it.”

The pair add further depth to the northern jockeys’ ranks which were getting thin a couple of years ago because of retirements or others moving to Australia but have been enormously bolstered by the arrival of Warren Kennedy, Joe Doyle and a handful of other overseas jockeys alongside the established local stars.

Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.