Horse racing: Ruakaka trainers maintain fortress

Trainer Chris Gibbs from Ruakaka.

Ruakaka's reputation of racing's fortress of the north may be under threat as the track becomes the key focus of the northern region over the next month.

While local trainers were able to provide two trifectas at Saturday's first meeting of the winter circuit, trainer Chris Gibbs says he doesn't have the numbers to lead a local domination.

Gibbs trained Kaareraway and Super Gee to quinella the rating 74 race on Saturday with another local Zelenski, trained by Kenny Rae and Krystal Williams-Tuhoro, in third, with the latter stable scoring a trifecta in the open sprint as well.

That is nothing new for local stables at Ruakaka with there being times in the past decade when they completely dominated meetings, Gibbs sometimes winning three or even four races a day there when training with Donna Logan, who has since moved to Singapore.

With the advantage of not having to travel to race at home as opposed to all the Waikato horses who spend hours on a transporter to get to Ruakaka meetings, Gibbs admits it was great to be back racing there but says the numbers don't stack up for a northern domination.

"I don't have anywhere near the numbers we did a few years ago and I don't want to get to that level again," says Gibbs.

"I have enough horses, around 20 at the moment, that I can train the team at the level I want and make it work, but Kenny and Krystal definitely have a bigger team than I do.
"So between us, we will train our share of winners up here over the next month or two, but I don't see us dominating."

Being a proud local, Gibbs was pleased to see so many trainers from the Auckland and Waikato regions wanting to travel north for a better surface rather than using the new Cambridge synthetic track to get away from winter mudbath tracks.

"It was great to see such good fields and I think we have a really good circuit coming up here over the next six weeks," explains Gibbs.

"For us locals not to have to travel is a real bonus and it gives us an advantage but probably none more so than the trainers at Matamata when we have to travel there."

Gibbs suggests Kaareraway is his horse to follow over the regular racing coming up at Ruakaka with the addition of blinkers on Saturday seeing her raise her game.

"I had been waiting to put the blinkers on and it usually improves them straight away because it makes them concentrate so much better so I think she will go on with it and is our one to follow."

While the Rae and Williams-Tuhoro team produced the human performance of the day with their open sprint training trifecta, the competition for equine star of the show was more intense.

Masetto was heavily backed before smashing his rivals in the Bream Bay Cup, while the Tony Pike-trained pair of Witsabouthim (race four) and Makzabeel (race nine) were both enormous coming from last to win their races.

The success of the meeting came after an early setback when the third race was abandoned because of a starting gate malfunction which was rectified in time for the remainder of the programme to be held.