Mitch's SA week in review
SA guru Mitch Lewis takes a look back at racing, trials and jump-outs across South Australia last week, identifying a number of horses for your blackbook.
Blackbookers - Morphettville 18/10
R2 Palm Of Jumeirah
Palm Of Jumeirah was resuming, found herself a little bit further back than ideal early and was hitting the line strongly late, peeling off the 5th fastest L600m of the meeting, she lost momentum for a stride at the 150m mark so with a clean run, could have been finishing even quicker.
R3 Saint Boom
Missed the kick badly in the early stages and had to work early to find a position. A slow tempo helped him land 4th in the run. He has finished less than 0.5L from the winner and if he had have jumped out cleanly and not had to work early he could have been stronger late.
R8 Zunna
Had to do some work early from a wide barrier with From The Block putting some speed into the race. Race favourite Shady Thinker got the run of the race up on the inside to beat Zunna by only 0.5L. If the barriers are flipped Zunna perhaps get a better run and she was also four weeks between runs here having missed her last start when scratched as an emergency so maybe on the fresh side as well.
Trial and Jump-out Blackbookers
Morphettville 16/10
Heat #1 Portarlington- A 2YO runner stepping out for the Phillip Stokes team. He travelled nicely throughout the run, got challenged for the lead in the straight and naturally extended to run away with little urging, putting a near 2L gap on rivals easily.
[video width="854" height="480" mp4="https://betsy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/2025-10-16_trial1.mp4"][/video]
Heat #2 Beauty Bound- Jumped out well and settled on speed. With no urging she went past the leader in the straight and ran strongly through the line. Beauty Bound and the horse that has finished 2nd have put a decent gap on rivals.
[video width="854" height="480" mp4="https://betsy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/2025-10-16_trial2.mp4"][/video]
Heat #12 I Am Ole- Away slowly and landed out the back of the field. He overraced through stages of this race and still looks very green at stages which we saw in his debut run. Once they have straightened up, he has switched right on and run over the top of the field. Clearly has talent but is still a touch green. Of note out of this heat, we mentioned Norheim from last weeks jump outs who was slow away from the barriers, he has jumped away a lot better today and ran well again, expect a debut soon.
[video width="854" height="480" mp4="https://betsy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/2025-10-16_trial12.mp4"][/video]
