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“Isn’t perfect”: Sepals trainer worried about nightmare barrier
Connor Scanlon • September 19th, 2025 5:23 pm
Promising horse Sepals who has four wins from six starts is racing this Saturday in the Group 1 Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes (1400m).
The Cliff Brown trained bay is a 1400m extraordinaire, with all his wins coming at the 1400m distance.
However, despite Sepals being the second-favourite at $4.50 (on Sportsbet), Brown is extremely worried about the four-year-old’s tough barrier draw (16).
“The gate is a concern, absolutely,” Brown told SENTrack and RSN’s Giddy Up.
“The 1400m start at Caulfield is tricky enough, let alone jumping from the near outside gate.
“It isn’t perfect.
“I think tomorrow will be a day to find out lots of things, but we have to be wary to the barrier.
“He may have a tough run and run a really good fourth, fitfth, sixth and that’s where he is on Saturday, but it doesn’t mean that where he’ll end up.”
Sepals is coming off an extremely impressive 1400m Benchmark 100 victory by 4.25 lengths, however Brown acknowledged that Sepals win wasn’t as impressive as the favourite Angel Capital’s.
Angel Capital won his first-up run at 1200m by 3.75 lengths in a Listed Race, setting itself up perfectly for the Sir Rupert Clarke.
“I don’t know (how good Sepals is), he was impressive the other day and it was a benchmark race,” Brown admitted.
“We’ve now gotta go several levels higher – Angel Capital did it in a group race and was just as impressive and did it against better opposition.
“No disrespect to our race, but that probably is a fact.”
Despite the worry, the trainer admitted that Sepals is ready to go for the Group 1 and he is hopeful for the race.
“Sepals is in great order, everything is very good, he’s trained on and he looks well, so we’re hopeful,” Brown exclaimed.
“1400m probably is (his best distance), 1500m, 1600m as well.
“His run in the (Australian) Guineas was very good, he was settled a long way back, but he couldn’t have run his sectionals any quicker.
“He’s certainly promising.”
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