A trio of chances at Seymour

It's a busy Thursday for Ballymore with three runners heading up the Hume to Seymour; Purple Prince contesting the second race, Cavalry Man the seventh and White Bear the eighth.

Ending up a fair way back off a tardy start at his Sale debut on slow going back in June, the three-year-old Purple Prince has Harry Coffey aboard in the 1300m maiden.

"He is back from a nice break," Michael said.

"He has got a bit of a tricky draw but they start from the shute and it is a track where they can sit a bit wide and still finish off so the barrier is probably not as bad as it looks."

"He is nice and forward and he has pleased us. He is a big, tall, rangey fellow and whatever he does today he will improve upon but we will be disappointed if he doesn't run well as he does have nice ability."

Purple Prince is a son of the regally bred Prince Of Caviar and he has similar ownership to that stallion's dam, the superstar Black Caviar.

Cavalry Man had been in great form leading into a heavy track failure at Kilmore a few weeks ago and we are looking forward to seeing him bounce back on more suitable firmer going.

One of the favourites in a BM64 contest over 2000m, the So You Think four-year-old won a Seymour maiden over 1600m when resuming - taking that winning form to a Kyneton BM64 over 1856m at his next start.

To be ridden by Craig Williams, the grey is nicely placed to feature right in the thick of things.

"We can just put a line through his last start on the heavy track," Michael said.

"We have been really happy with him, we can't fault him and we expect to turn his form right around."

"It is a handy race but he is a nice up-and-coming stayer who should be very competitive, we think he can go very close."

Also well in the market is White Bear who has been coming along nicely at the jump-outs, having his first start since mid-July.

Successful at two of his three first up runs, the lightly raced and promising five-year-old son of Shamexpress kicked off his last campaign with a five length victory at Benalla - over the same trip at the same BM64 level he contests today.

"He is a hard horse to get a line on as we don't do a lot with him," Michael explained, "but we have been very happy with him and if he runs up to his normal form he should prove hard to beat."

"He's jump outs have been good and we have him as forward as we can have him without overdoing it."