Steve Telfer (right), celebrating a victory last year with sister Amanda and driver Ben Butcher. Photo / Photosport
The second wave of Steve Telfer’s juvenile army launch their assault on Alexandra Park tonight and the trainer says strength could be the deciding factor.
Telfer is the head of New Zealand harness racing’s biggest stable, training in partnership with his sister Amanda and Hayden Cullen, and after dominating the
domestic sales market in recent years he decided to flex some of that muscle last week.
The stable produced the trifecta in last Thursday’s juvenile race, with Rock Band the first of their five reps home, while they will have four of the seven starters in tonight’s freshman race on all-mile night.
It is almost unheard of for any stable in either code to line up nine debutant two-year-olds in seven days, but Telfer has more to come, with up to 20 juveniles in training.
“We have some lovely horses in work but what we are finding is around about this stage of the season the colts start to catch up to and often pass the fillies,” says Telfer. “Early in the season we find the fillies run quicker times because they often mature faster but as the boys start to come to it they get stronger and often that is telling, they end up too strong for the fillies.”
