Former trotting “King” Chris Lang is never long between good horses.
The man who guided superstars like Sundons Gift, Skyvalley, Let Me Thru and National Interest to so many features wins looks to have found his next young star.
Two-year-old gelding Verbici will be a hot favourite to stretch his unbeaten record to six wins in a heat of the Vicbred series at Melton on Friday night.
He has come along when there was a void in the stable Lang runs with partner Sonia Mahar with their open-class star Ollivici sidelined for a year with suspensory ligament issues.
Verbici joins the exciting four-year-old I Am Wilma as the stable’s star prospects in the Vicbred series.
“If you’d asked me three or four months after we bought him (Verbici), I wouldn’t have anything good to say. He could hardly trot,” Lang said.
“It’s easy to look back now and think he was an early goer with his record as a two-year-old, but that wasn’t the case.
“We had to be careful and patient in the early days, but he’s just gradually kept getting better.
“Even when we took him to Wagga for the Nutrien final, I hoped we’d win that because I wasn’t sure he’d win much else, then he went to Menangle and won there, too.
“But it’s really been since then, when he had some time and came back, he’s gone to a whole new level. He’s strengthened up and seems like a different horse.”
It was Verbici’s latest win, when underdone in the Bob Conroy Classic, that really impressed Lang.
“We weren’t going to run him, but it was that or another trial. So for him to come so far off a good horse in front and win, going a 27.2sec last quarter out three-wide, that’s huge,” he said.
“I’ve been lucky enough to train some really nice young trotters, but not many of them could do that. So, yes, I think he’s very exciting.”
Verbici has the Vicbred final Saturday week, another trip to Menangle for the Yabby Dams series late this month, and then the Redwood Classic still to come this season.
I Am Wilma, already a winner of eight races, will start her Vicbred title defence in a heat next Wednesday and then head to the final 10 days later.
“She’s not the simplest mare to train, but she’s getting better with age,” Lang said. “It’s the reason we didn’t take her to Queensland for the (Group 1 ) Great Square a couple of months back, to give her more time to mature because we think she can measure up.
“If the next few weeks go well, the (Group 1) Bill Collins (Sprint, October 17) is on the radar.
“Then there’s all those other feature (trotting) races after Christmas.”
