After waiting nearly 30 years for his first Group 1 success, Michael Bellman is now plotting a path to his third in the space of six weeks.
Star three-year-old Mecarno added a Vicbred Super Series crown to his Victoria Trotters Derby win from earlier in the month, with Saturday night’s victory giving Bellman his second elite-level triumph in a harness racing career that started in 1997.
Mecarno has received an invitation to the $150,000 The Great Square in Queensland on December 6, but Bellman and his connections are likely to bypass that and focus on the Breeders Crown series here in Victoria.
“I’ll probably press on to the Breeders Crown – he’s pulled up a treat,” Bellman said. “I’m not going to go to Queensland. He’d have to be leaving by the end of the week and it’s pretty humid and hot up there at the minute.
“I think they’re also taking (top four-year-old) Jilliby Ballerini, and I don’t think he needs to be racing (horses like them) just yet.”
The Breeders Crown series kicks off next week, with the three-year-old trotting colts and geldings’ final a Group 1 event on December 13.
The state’s premier trotting feature, the Great Southern Star, could then be on the radar for the lightly-raced son of Tactical Landing in mid-February.
“That’s probably something that would suit him, the two runs in a night,” Bellman said. “I just don’t think he’s a genuine miler. I’d prefer him over the distance.
“But naturally there’s going to be more races over the short than the long, so he’s probably going to have to get a bit more ringcraft about him with that sort of thing.”
Mecarno is a winner of seven of his 13 starts, with prizemoney earnings close to $100,000.
