It is starting to get a little personal for some of the best in New Zealand harness racing.
Take Cran Dalgety, the effervescent Kiwi trainer with the odd wardrobe that disguises a cunning racing interlect.
Dalgety has been part of the golden era of New Zealand harness racing when crossing the Tasman meant great parties and easy money.
He has won four Victoria Cups, six Breeders Crowns and a Hunter Cup in a time when compatriots like Mark and Barry Purdon and even Dalgety’s brother-in-laws Tim and Anthony Butt used Australia’s richest races as ATMs.
Then something changed. Well, quite a lot changed.
First COVID restrictions stopped the Kiwis travelling, then the most successful of them all, Mark Purdon, started to ease out of the game and into now semi-retirement.
At the same time wonderful Australian horseman like Grant Dixon and Luke McCarthy reached new peaks and Jason Grimson emerged.
The shoe is now on the other foot and Dalgety admits he doesn’t fit very well as the Aussies have won the last three New Zealand Cups and both rich slot races at Cambridge last year.
Swayzee, Kingman and the truly magnificent Leap To Fame, along with trotters Just Believe, Arcee Phoenix, Keayang Zahara and Gus, have stolen New Zealand’s harness pride and Dalgety heads to the Hunter Cup at Melton tomorrow night to get it back.
It would seem an ambitious place to make your stand, a Hunter Cup stacked with three local champions of different type: undoubted champion Leap To Fame, budding champion Kingman and defending champion Swayzee.
But Dalgety believes in his pint-sized pacer Republican Party, clearly the best of a battling bunch back home.
“I’d love to win this race for us, but also for everybody back home,” says Dalgety. “It has been a real slog watching the Aussies come over and win everything, but good on them for travelling and having a crack with some great horses.”
If there is to be a pathway to redemption, Dalgety believes it could be the Melton passing lane.
“Our dream scenario from barrier one is Swayzee leading, Leap To Fame giving it to him the last lap and us having a crack at them late,” he says.
“If that happens, he can win. He has improved so much off his run (second) in the Kilmore Cup last Saturday.
“We know if they ran this race in a straight line Leap To Fame would be $1.01, but it is around six bends and we might cover the least ground.”
Let the fightback begin.
