Matt Dunn strongly suspects ex-Hong Kong horse Midori Beauty has the explosive talent to be a Queensland summer or even winter carnival contender. Midori Beauty had 13 starts in Hong Kong without winning, leading star jockey Zac Purton to say he kept being “sucked in” by the galloper who had trouble winning. • EXCLUSIVE: Golden Eagle, The Shorts to be elevated to Group 1 status But it only took Murwillumbah trainer Dunn one start to get a win out of Midori Beauty when the six-year-old gelding flew home from last to score an eye-catching win at Doomben over 1050m last month.
Midori Beauty now steps out to 1200m when taking on rivals in the Class 3 Plate at the first metropolitan meeting back at the Gold Coast grass track on Saturday. Midori Beauty is a $6 chance and Dunn hopes there is no on-pace bias on Saturday so Midori Beauty can unleash his trademark booming finish. Even though Midori Beauty currently only has a rating of 70, Dunn feels sure that with continued improvement he is up to having a crack at the Queensland summer carnival.
“He’s got the turn of foot to be a carnival horse,” Dunn said. • Fab's Cowboy still winning in retirement “He’s got the acceleration and he works with all of my better horses already. “He’s already in Saturday grade and he’s only got to find a bit more to be competitive in carnivals.
“I think he will just keep improving as, for his age, he is certainly not overraced. “He could probably line up pretty well for summe.