UNBEATEN Tasmanian two-year-old pacer Quastor Centurion has been scratched from Sunday night’s $25,000 Betfair Sweepstakes colts and geldings’ final in Hobart due to illness.
Quastor Centurion’s trainer Kent Rattray said the gelding was sidelined with a cold.
“It’s nothing serious just a cold but bad enough for him to stay at home instead of going around in the Sweepstakes final,” Rattray said.
“We saw the signs of it (cold) when we got him home from running in the heat (Sweepstakes) last Sunday week and while we thought he’d be right for this race it (cold) stayed about.”
“We’ll tip him out in the paddock for a couple of weeks and concentrate on the Sires Stakes (Dandy Patch) which is in about nine weeks.
“It’s my job to make sure the horses are fit and healthy at the races so there was no way we were prepared to risk him just to run in a $25,000 race,” he said.
Quastor Centurion is unbeaten from five starts with his most prolific win arriving in the Golden Slipper in Launceston where he gave boom New Zealand colt Courage Tells a start and a hiding and clocked a mile rate of 2.00.8.
With Quastor Centurion out of the race it opens up betting with the Barrie Rattray-trained duo of Hangover Joe and Beautide likely to vie for favouritism ahead of his father Wayne Rattray’s smart gelding Karalta Wizard that chased home Quastor Centurion in their heat.