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By Adrian Sciglitano

Trainer Mack Griffith is confident a set of blinkers will sharpen up three-year-old Deep Field gelding Crown Legend ($2 favourite on TAB) when he contests the Arrowfield Country Boosted Maiden Plate (1100m) at Scone on Thursday.

Mack Griffith with one of his winners at Tamworth Racecourse. Image by Bradley Photographers

A newly acquired online purchase to the Griffith team formerly with Nick Ryan, Crown Legend was narrowly defeated in his first run for the stable at Orange over 1000m by 0.82L behind Eastern Odyssey, in a run where Griffith went in with no expectations.

Crown Legend will jump from barrier 10 with Aaron Bullock in the saddle and looks to get an opportunity to break his maiden at only his fifth career start and second for the new stable.

“We bought him online, we thought he was a progressive sort of horse and he only had a small amount of starts,” Griffith said.

“We wanted to give him one run to see what he is capable of [at Orange] and he showed us that he needed blinkers, so blinkers go on and that should keep him a bit more focused.”

Griffith expects the wide barrier to not be a problem over the short circuit, and is happy to leave it to the prolific jockey to navigate.

“Aaron [Bullock] will just assess it as he sees it, [barrier] 10 is not ideal, but there is only one turn at Scone.”

Having only four career starts to date, Griffith is confident his gelding can stretch out over a trip as he progresses, which will open up more opportunities.

“From what he has shown us at home, he will get up to 1400m down to the track, he is a lovely tractable horse, very relaxed," Griffith said.

"That’s why I have put the blinkers on to keep him a bit more focused, but he will get over a trip down the track,” the trainer added.

View the final fields with full form & race replays for Scone here