Scissor Kick began fairly well and settled in sixth spot, between runners. He improved between runners, under riding, rounding the home turn, got a split at the 200m and kept responding to Tye Angland’s urgings and ran on to grab a last stride win. He is a quality colt who should appreciate stepping much further in distance. Panzer Division settled third on the rails from his inside barrier (1). He got an rails run on turning for home, took the lead at the 100m only to be caught in the last few strides for a close second, putting up a smart effort at only his second race start. Valentia raced outside the leader, stablemate Liberation. He challenged at the 300m but was then badly checked as that horse ducked out suddenly. He then battled on quite well to be fourth across the line and was promoted to third on protest. The favourite Better Land was fourth, one out and one back, to the turn. He switched out to make his run at the 300m but was hindered from that point being fifth past the post (without being fully tested) and was promoted to fourth after Liberation was relegated to fifth. Liberation went to the front and appeared to be travelling well as he turned for home. But the veered out suddenly at the 300m, resulting in trouble to a number of runners. He retained the lead but then drifted off the track at the 100m proving very difficult to control, being third over the line. Meursault raced in sixth place, one off the rails. He went to the centre of the track at the 300m and was running on well when he suffered from a chain reaction of interference. He was then taken wide from the 100m and finished (2.4 lengths) sixth without being fully tested over the closing stages putting up a sound effort under the circumstances. *ANZ