Where to next for Port Louis?

What do connections do with Port Louis?

Wednesday’s Ladbrokes Switch Plate at Sandown was meant to be a nice confidence booster for Port Louis who was chasing a maiden win.

Trained by Ciaron Maher and David Eustace, Port Louis jumped the $1.24 favourite and albeit sitting three deep the whole race, many thought his class would prevail.

How we were all wrong.

Despite competing in black-type races, Port Louis went down as the Michael and Wayne Hawkes-trained Oughton led throughout and ultimately proved too good.

Port Louis had competed very well in stronger races to amass over $197,000 in prizemoney, begging the question - Should connections just run him in black-type races where the prizemoney is greater?

Thoughts on Port Louis?

Was being three-wide with no cover a fair excuse? @DrinkWiseAus pic.twitter.com/UG6jh6XcoW
— Racing.com (@Racing) December 15, 2021

Speaking on SEN Track, Cam Luke posed that exact idea.

“What I would do with him, is just run him in the best races, he may legitimately be scared of the winning post,” said Luke.

“You may not be able to get him into it, but if you can bob him up in a race like the Australian Guineas, he’ll probably run a really nice fourth or fifth.

“You’d make more money running fourth in an Australian Guineas than you would winning a mid-week maiden, but I do understand why he needs to win a race for the obvious reasons.

“Yesterday I thought to myself, he's no longer Australia's best maiden because the horse has to be able to at some point win a race and yesterday, I think that went backwards.”

Port Louis was the seventh horse in Melbourne since 2008 to lose at a quote under $1.30.