Victorian trainer, Price wasn’t happy that owners and connections of Ayrton had been forced into paying additional entry fees for his runner to enter the Group One Stradbroke.
Price had previously planned to run Ayrton in the three races whilst in the Sunshine State which would have featured the Group Two Hollindale Stakes, Group One Doomben Cup and the Group 2 Q22.
Having given a below par performance in the Hollindale though Price has opted to revise his plan and drop back in distance to tackle the Stradbroke. However the late cost to enter is $9,000 leaving Price fed up with the rising costs of fees.
“It’s $9000, race clubs keep punishing owners so that’s what it will be,” Price said.
“All they do is punish owners, I know it is a revenue raiser for them, but it makes you wonder what horses don’t nominate because they missed the early nomination.
“I know we never intended to run him in it, we were going into the three races – the Hollindale, Doomben Cup and The Q22 – but we had to change course.
“(Owners) were happy to pay it but in principal, all those early nominations are revenue raisers for them but they’ll never change it, they’ll stick to it.”
Ayrton was a red hot favourite for the $1.5m feature in 2021 but failed to qualify fo the race however Price says the youngster will go straight in this time around.
“I will trial him at Deagon on the Tuesday the week before the Stradbroke, I reckon,” Price said.
“He pulled up good, perfect, there were no problems at all from the Hollindale. The track was horrible so I don’t know if he gets the trip or not and he got keen on the outside of horses and it brought him undone.
“He is back at Eagle Farm, he was at the Gold Coast but he is back in Brisbane with my man Tim Suttie.”