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SA underdog’s time to shine?

He's banked just shy of $1 million and is a last-start winner of the traditional lead-up, but Kemalpasa remains an underdog heading into Saturday’s $502,250 Group 1 Goodwood (1200m) at Morphettville.

The Richard and Chantelle Jolly-trained five-year-old has barely put a foot wrong over the past three years but sits on the fifth line of betting at $10 behind his big-name rivals.

However, a flawless preparation has the stable feeling this could be its chance to claim a couple of big scalps in SA’s premier sprint feature.

“This might be the day he can beat the better ones,” Richard Jolly said.

“In the past you’d have to say he wouldn’t be good enough to beat Behemoth or Gytrash. But there is a bit of rain around, he likes that, and this might be his opportunity to beat those horses who have always been a bit better than him.

“He might just have the better grounding.”

While he might not have the profile of Gytrash and Behemoth, Jolly said Kemalpasa’s record speaks for itself.

“When you look at it, he’s barely run out of the top three in past three years and people still don’t put him in their tips,” Jolly said.

“That doesn’t worry me, we seem to get better price every time he runs.

“When we’ve gone to Melbourne with him, he’s won twice down the straight when he wasn’t fancied. He started favourite in the Kevin Heffernan last time he went over and everyone was still tipping around him and he was $2.

“But those things don’t worry me.”

Jolly said the horse had ticked all the right boxes since his Irwin victory and would make his presence felt early in the race.

“He’s done the work, hasn’t missed anything in the past four week and he’s going to be fit and ready to go,” Jolly said.

“He’ll go forward and make his presence felt early. He always flies the gate but I would think he’ll be in the first two or three.”

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