Life has been busy for prominent Victorian trainer Alex Ashwood.
Based near Bendigo, Ashwood campaigned a number of his stable stars at the recent Brisbane Inter Dominion series.
“Just hours after that amazing Grand Final night at Albion Park (last Saturday week) I was down in Launceston driving. I flew out first thing the next morning,” he said.
The frantic travel schedule paid dividends, albeit just, when Ashwood’s exciting four-year-old pacer Hungry Hippo just did enough to win the $75,000 Group 2 Raider Stakes.
Still juggling horses racing in Queensland and Victoria, Ashwood returns to Launceston for an even bigger target on Saturday night with Hungry Hippo, the $100,000 Beautide, Tasmania’s second-richest harness race.
Hungry Hippo only joined Ashwood’s barn in May and is unbeaten in two starts for an overall record of nine starts for seven wins and two seconds.
“I think he’s the best horse in the race, but need to be and he’ll have to handle the bends better than he has been to overcome his barrier draw (gate 13, outside the back row),” he said.
“It looks a strong race on paper and the two three-year-olds (Likeyouforareason and Always Bettor) might hold the key given their preferential draws (barriers one and two).
“They’ve been running home in really quick times, but I’ve noticed they haven’t run quick lead times or fast first quarters yet and you think they’d have to do that this week.
“It’ll be interesting whether they can do it at both ends in a high pressure race rather than just a sprint home.
“If they can, they’ll be very hard to beat, but they’ve got some nice older horses like Barbary Tales and The Bride drawn on the front row.
“The Bride is a watch runner. If she ran up to her best Victorian form when I had her, it wouldn’t surprise me if she led and bolted in, but we haven’t seen that form for a while.”
Ashwood also has huge respect for another Victorian raider, Okanui Beach, trained by Craig Turnbull and driven by his daughter Abbey, who finished a close second to Hungry Hippo in the Raider Stakes last Sunday week.
“He’s fast and dangerous with the right run,” he said. “I can’t be in a position where he’s following me and gets the last crack in a sprint home, especially around these bends, he’d beat me.
“One thing I’ve up my sleeve with (Hungry) Hippo is that I drove him a while back when Emma Stewart still trained him and cut him loose a long way from home to make it a real staying test and he thrived on it.
“If they go a solid lead time this week, that could be a good option for me to make it a real staying test and try to take the sprint out of Okanui Beach and a few others, too.”
Ashwood, who was born and grew up in Tasmania, enjoyed the proud harness racing state playing such a big part in the Brisbane Inter Dominion, headed by the Tasmanian bred-and-owned Nyack finishing third to Captains Mistress and Leap To Fame in $1 million pacing final./
“If you go back, pretty much every year since Beautide won those two (Inter Dominion) pacing finals (2014 and ’15), there’s been a Tasmanian connection in either the pacing or trotting finals,” he said. “It’s great for the game down there.”
PHOTOS: Stacey Lear Photography
