Darren Weir has four shots at winning a second Ballarat Cup on Saturday, but he doesn’t appear overly confident of his chances.
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The master Ballarat trainer has a strong hand in the $300,000 feature, with his gallopers Taiyoo, Lidari, Lord van Percy and Auvray all set to take their place in the field.
While leaning towards Taiyoo and Lidari as the best of his hopes, Weir isn’t bullish about the likelihood of adding to the success he had in 2004 with Just The Part.
“None of them have been set for this race – it's just a part of the program that they've ended up in,” Weir said.
Despite this, Weir said all of the horses head into the race in the “right shape” and said it is just good to have runners in a hometown cup.
"It would be nice to win it, but it's not that easy,” he said.
Taiyoo will go into the event on the back of victory in the Kyneton Cup earlier this month, while Lidari (third), Lord van Percy (seventh) and Auvray (eighth) all ran in the group 3 Eclipse Stakes at Sandown last Saturday.
Weir reflected on his one and only Ballarat Cup success with a horse close to his heart.
"(Just The Part) won a Stawell Cup for me and he won a Ballarat Cup and he was a bloody good horse,” Weir said.
"We had four cups we wanted to win. We wanted to win Stawell where I started training, Ballarat where I train now, Swan Hill where I came from and then we fluked the big one (Melbourne Cup).
"They were the four cups we wanted to win and we were lucky enough to do it.
"Just The Part won two of those races, so he was a good horse to us."
