If Gottashopearly can produce a minor miracle and qualify for December’s TAB Inter Dominion series, he’ll be positioned to become the pride of Tamworth.

For the duration of the three-week ID18 series at least, the Country Music Festival preparations will take backseat as the Richard Williams-prepared steed takes on the best in Australasia’s premier harness racing series.

Heck, if Gottashopearly wins they’ll have to replace the Golden Guitar with the bronzed pacer.

“We’ve definitely thrown him in the deep end of the pool,” acknowledged trainer Williams on RSN’s One Out, One Back this morning.

“He won our feature at Tamworth over 2700m and rated a 2:01 mile rate on a 750m track. As far as the Inter Dominion nomination is concerned it wasn’t really on the radar until we sort of thought, everything ticks the boxes for him. He loves the quick back-up and he’s a genuine stayer.

"We’ve taken him to Brisbane and Menangle to step him up and see what he’s got. He wouldn’t disgrace himself, so we thought we’d throw him in and have a stab. And if it’s not this year, who knows, maybe next year.”

Gottashopearly has already jumped 11 spots in the TAB ID18 rankings since the initial positions were released earlier this month, but he’s still got a long way to go. He’s up to 92 (from 103), starting out second-lowest ranked of the 104 entrants.

A forward showing in tomorrow night’s 3SH Swan Hill Pacing Cup would see him thunder up the charts.

And there’s money in the market to suggest he just might – backed from $31 to $14 with TAB.com.au’s fixed odds market for the Swan Hill Trots Country Cups Championship feature.

“We haven’t driven 12 hours for nothing,” Williams said when asked about the pacer’s chances at Swan Hill.

Similar to fellow Swan Hill Cup and ID18 contender Im The Boss, Gottashopearly is a former claimer.

“Basically I was nagging the owners to claim the horse about four months ago and they weren’t real keen on him … they ended up claiming him to keep me quiet. Now they’re pretty big fans of him,” Williams said.

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Listen to the full interview by clicking on the link below.