Clarken Racing | Clarken Racing News 55983 Clarken Chasing Third Consecutive Lightning Stakes

Will Clarken will chase a third consecutive $120,000 Listed Lightning Stakes (1050m) victory, a first in partnership with Niki O’Shea, at Morphettville on Saturday.

The top Adelaide stable have enjoyed a strong finish to what they have described and indifferent season producing five winners form their past 10 runners (including two placings) in what has been their equal strongest month of the racing season.

“We’ve had an up and down season,’’ Clarken said.

“We’ve had a really good year trading horses to Hong Kong, you take five of the two and three-year-olds out and it makes it hard to keep your winning numbers up.

“We ran second in another Group 1, we’ve done that the last two seasons, we lost a couple of horses and we’ve gained a couple of new ones,’’ he said.

Clarken said getting to their new Murray Bridge stable later in the year and the more experience gained following the shift to his farm at Sellicks Beach should see good things happen in season 2023-24.

“I think next year Niki and I will get a better rhythm together, from the new base at Murray Bridge I can see us really building some momentum,’’ Clarken said.

“Niki heads a really good team of trackwork riders which is key, and I think that will pay dividends.

“Every trainer always says they have a really good crop of young horses, but we’ve got a really good crop of two and three-year-olds coming through,’’ he said.

Clarken won the 2021 Lightning Stakes with Beau Rossa before Extremely Lucky produced a dazzling burst of speed to power over the top of rivals in last year’s edition and the stable have no short of four acceptances in this year’s feature.

“We’ve obviously had a better standard of horse in this race over the last couple of years, but these fillies get some weight off the others, and I was happy to see the main hopes drawing wide,’’ Clarken said.

“They’ll go hard and that will bring a few of ours into it, whether they have the class we will have to find out, but I think they are better (chances) then their prices indicate,’’ he said.

The interesting runner is Sweetened, an ex-Lindsay Park filly first-up for her new stable.

“She’s going in off two little gallops, we’ve missed a couple of jump-outs and trials but her two pieces of work have been exceptionally good,’’ Clarken said.

“She’s obviously got good performance figures and I’ve got a hunch she’s going to be a better horse ridden off them over the short trips,’’ he said.