3 minute read
Top rating jumper Zed Em will attempt to set a modern day weight carrying record in Thursday’s $350,000 Grand Annual Steeplechase at Warrnambool.
Top rating jumper Zed Em will attempt to set a modern day weight carrying record in Thursday’s $350,000 Grand Annual Steeplechase at Warrnambool.
Zed Em is returning for another crack at Australia’s most famous jumping event after carrying 69.5kg into second place in the 5500m marathon won by Gold Medals.
This year he has to carry 70kg in the longest throughbred race in Australia.
If Zed Em wins it would be the heaviest weight carried to victory in the Grand Annual since The Feline won under the equivalent of 73.5kg in 1950.
Since the introduction of metrics in 1973 the highest winning weight in the Grand Annual has been 69kg carried by Al Garhood in 2011.
Zed Em ran in last year’s Grand Annual two days after finishing second behind Gold Medals the Brierly Steeplechase (3450m) on the first day of Warrnambool’s three-day carnival.
He is again in top form after trainer Patrick Payne sent him to last week’s Oakbank Easter carnival for his second successive win in the Great Eastern Steeplechase over 4950m.
Payne will bypass the Brierly Steeple this year with Zed Em to save him for Thursday but the stable will be represented on Tuesday by Slowpoke Rodriguez, a former Kiwi jumper who is set to back up in the Grand Annual.
Payne, who has emerged as the leading jumps trainer, will attempt to win the three jumps features at Warrnambool as he also has the talented hurdler Killarney Kid, another former Kiwi jumper, set for Wednesday’s Galleywood Hurdle.