Jimmysstar no certainty for TJ Smith run

The second favourite for the Gr.1 T.J. Smith Stakes (1200m) is no certainty to take his place this Saturday with Jimmysstar (NZ) (Per Incanto) having to prove himself in his work after a rare unplaced failure last week at Caulfield.

Trainer Ciaron Maher said at Flemington on Saturday that he would travel to Sydney in the morning to watch Jimmysstar go through his paces on the track at Warwick Farm after his William Reid Stakes run, which Maher termed “a bit of a head-scratcher”.

“I’ll just want to see how he is,” Maher said. “We’ll have a look at him tomorrow morning and watch him work and then we have to make a call.

“He travelled up to Sydney and had a canter this morning. We’ll see how he works – he doesn’t have to do a lot obviously as his fitness is pretty good, so he’ll just have a tick-over – but yeah, it (last start) was a bit of a head scratcher.

“There were clods. He had black eyes and he had stuff down his throat. So, does that make all that much difference? The winner might have had been hit by clods also and so I don’t really like making excuses.

“Mark (Zahra) said he just got sort of terrorised, and he is a horse that does his own thing a bit; bridles up. I didn’t mind him being on the inside.

“He (Zahra) said he jumped, got hit straight out of the barriers (by Tropicus), and then he was wanting to get out and got pushed back in and then at the furlong got a decent bump as well. But as I said I don’t really like making excuses.

“Mark is normally a pretty straight shooter but he just said just nothing went right, so I don’t know. Maybe a bit on the fence.”

In the early Sportsbet market, the beaten Newmarket Handicap favourite Tentyris holds sway in the T.J. Smith at $3 ahead of Jimmysstar ($4,50), Joliestar ($5) and Giga Kick ($7).