Australian racing picks for Royal Randwick

Sydney’s spring racing carnival continues Down Under, as Royal Randwick will host its fourth consecutive Friday-night (in North America) card and a brand-new, $2 million race.

"The Invitation" is for fillies and mares trained in the Antipodes (Australia and New Zealand) and contested over seven furlongs.

The race also happens to be a 100-point race for those playing TwinSpires’ The Everest Leaderboard competition, where horseplayers have an opportunity to share in $15,000 worth of cash throughout the month of October. The promotion is being staged in conjunction with TwinSpires’ partner, Sky Racing World.

The first of 10 high-quality races at Randwick kicks off at 9:30 p.m. ET. Here are a couple picks.

Race 9: #7 Vangelic (9-1 on the morning line)

You may be put off if you look at the past performances and see that Vangelic finished 13th of 14 and 14 lengths behind the winner last time out, but it is a total forget run.

The classy mare tracked a horse that suffered an injury as they swung into the stretch, and jockey Tim Clark opted to ease her out of the race.

By all reports, the horse was straight back into work the next day and hasn’t incurred any physical or mental scares.

Two starts back, the Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott 4-year-old, by Vancouver, was an impressive winner of the Golden Pendant (G2) over the same distance at Rosehill, and if she brings that form into the race tonight, she’ll be a tough competitor.

She is quick out of the starting gate, will likely lead this field or be very prominent, and she’ll take plenty of catching up the famous Randwick stretch.

Race 3: #5 Able Willie (6-5 on the morning line)

We won’t get much of a price, but I expect Able Willie to be too good for them here.

The Chris Waller-trained 3-year-old gelding raced away with a comprehensive victory on debut, a few weeks back at Randwick, even though he showed plenty of inexperience.

With that run under his belt, he can only improve and go on with it here.

I hope you find a few winners at Randwick tonight, and good luck if you’re in contention in The Everest Leaderboard competition!