New Zealand Trotting Free-For-All: Muscle Mountain seeks to upset Just Believe

Muscle Mountain winning at Alexandra Park last year. Photo / Trish Dunell

Punters can expect a refreshing change in the New Zealand Trotting Free-For-All today – a Kiwi horse actually taking it to one of the Aussies.

That doesn’t mean a change of result as Victorian champion Just Believe should still win the Group 1 but it might at least make for a more interesting spectacle.

Just Believe strode to the front effortlessly to win the $400,000 Dominion on Tuesday, hours before Swayzee did the same in the New Zealand Cup for the second year running.

There were no drivers at fault in either. The Aussies had too much horsepower, and that will likely be the case as Just Believe tries to remain unbeaten in New Zealand in today’s 1980m mobile.

But rival driver Ben Hope on Muscle Mountain at least wants to stretch the little Aussie superstar.

Muscle Mountain missed the Dominion on Tuesday and the Flying Stakes at Ashburton after knocking a leg but has tangled with Just Believe before and come off second best.

On two of those occasions though he was able to beat him off the mobile gate at the start and Hope says that will be his plan today.

“I am confident I can get across him and if I do I want to stay in front,” says Hope.

“I don’t see any point handing up because then we can’t beat him and they will be pretty confident they can sit parked outside us and beat us because they have done it before.

“And that might be the case again because he could be an all-time great.”

Hope says his father Greg, who co-trains Muscle Mountain with wife Nina, took Muscle Mountain to Addington for a private workout last Saturday and loved what he felt.

“He has a real glint back in his eye and I feel like he is ready to go a big race.”

Earlier today the Hopes had unbeaten trotting filly Habibti Pat (R3, No 8) facing an outside draw and imposing northerner Meant To Be in the Group 1 juvenile trot.

Meant To Be beat Habibti Pat at the trials last week but Hope is certain the filly has improved and she will go close to maintaining her unbeaten record this afternoon.

Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.