Racing: Handicaps kind to Pompallier

Here is a racing story you won't read too often - the one where the trainer says his horse got off too lightly in the handicaps.

But Richard Brosnan is right and that is why Pompallier should win the feature trot at Alexandra Park tonight.

The leggy trotter returns to his favourite track after a crushing last-start win in the $100,000 Dominion Handicap at Addington.

That means he will have to give any of his opponents tonight a 10m start when he next meets them in a race like the Dominion or the Rowe Cup.

But under tonight's conditions he gets to share the 30m backmark with trotters like Rosscoe, Iwi Alex and Una Bromac, none of whom has won a major race.

Brosnan is blunt about the handicap.

"He gets into this race lightly because I thought he'd get 40m," he says.

"When you think how he won the Dominion the handicapper had every right to give him a bigger mark."

That being the case then, even the short break Brosnan gave Pompallier after the Dominion should not be enough to stop him winning tonight.

"He had most of the week off after coming home from Christchurch so he won't be at his peak for this," suggests Brosnan.

"The aim is to peak him for the Challenge Stakes next week and the National Trot on New Year's Eve.

"But the way he won the Dominion he still has to be the horse to beat."

Brosnan has always been the ultimate racing conservative but there is one fact even he can't overlook - Pompallier is better than the other trotters in the North Island.

Of the mixed open-class brigade in this country only Allegro Agitato has Pompallier's speed and she will spend the next two weeks racing in Melbourne, along with her rugged stablemate Jasmyn's Gift.

So 100 per cent fit or not, Pompallier should win tonight.

If his lack of fitness is to be exploited, and that is unlikely because most of his rivals are in the same position, then Rosscoe and Iwi Alex look his only realistic dangers.

Iwi Alex was in season when she galloped last start but was awesome winning fresh-up and is probably as fast as Pompallier over 400m. Her problem is her lack of manners.

Rosscoe was the poster boy for bad manners last season but defeated Pompallier fresh-up here last start. That was after having a better run than the favourite but it was at least good to see him back to something like his best.

He is too inconsistent yet to back to beat Pompallier but another good performance tonight will propel him back into the top echelon of Kiwi trotters.

An interesting starter tonight is Canterbury trotter Cornishman, who impressed when he raced here last season.

He was in mixed form at the New Zealand Cup carnival but at his best could test the backmarkers.