Racing: Southern stable seeks riches of the north

Smiling Shard won the Kaikoura Cup. Photo / Richard Robinson

Cran Dalgety is set to launch a summer assault on the northern harness racing riches.

But he will be leaving behind his most impressive winner of Cup week, Matt Maguire, and possibly even his stable star, Bettor's Strike.

The Canterbury trainer will base most of his big name pacers in the north from next week until Auckland Cup time in March. The team will be headed by Kaikoura Cup winner Smiling Shard, who made a decent fist of his debut in the big time in last Friday's New Zealand Free-For-All.

Unsuited by the slow tempo of the race he made good ground in the home straight and has emerged as a genuine Grand Circuit player.

That originally encouraged Dalgety to look at next week's Franklin Cup but he will now wait until mid December.

"I'd prefer to give him a slightly easier time because being a four-year-old he has a lot of big races coming up later in the season," said Dalgety.

"He will be racing good horses right through until the Harness Jewels in June so there is no need to be in a hurry with him."

That will see Smiling Shard contest open races at Alexandra Park's Christmas carnival before heading to Cambridge for the four-year-old races there in January. He is then likely to stay in Auckland through until the Auckland Cup, heading what could be a six-strong Dalgety northern stable.

"I will have a team of some sort up there all the way through because the stakes are too good to ignore. But it is not just a matter of sending up any old horse, they have to be the goods to win up there."

Whether multiple Grand Circuit winner Bettor's Strike joins the northern assault will be known in a few days. He raced below his best at the Cup carnival and could be suffering lingering effects of the illness that nearly killed him over the winter.

"With the run he had in the Free-For-All he should have finished third but he was well beaten and I want to have him checked out. He definitely isn't ready for Australia like he was this time last season so he will either come north or have a break and get ready for the Interdoms in March."

Dalgety won't be bringing exciting three-year-old Matt Maguire north for reasons of mental, rather than physical, fragility. He produced the best non-Addington harness performance of the Cup week when winning the Sires' Stakes Silver at Ashburton last Thursday in 1:53.9 after being five lengths off the gate at the start.

"He has got the motor but still has some real problems at the start so I want to keep him closer to home to iron out his problems."

The stable's best three-year-old Empyrean will make the trip north to try to pay back punters who got stung when he galloped at the 400m in last Tuesday's $180,000 Sires' Stakes Final. He was following eventual winner Gold Ace at the time and while loath to take anything away from that rival, driver Dexter Dunn is confident Empyrean would have won.

Dalgety's summer surge into Auckland is set to be matched by many of the south's elite stables, with trainers like Tim Butt, Robert Dunn and Paul Nairn all expected to campaign teams at Alexandra Park from December through until as late as March.

SOUTHERN RAIDERS

Cran Dalgety is setting up a northern satellite stable for the summer.

It will be headed by Kaikoura Cup winner Smiling Shard.

Most leading South Island stables are expected to race their best horses in the north in coming months.