Racing: Time ripe for Alta Serena

Alta Serena has a good chance of beating the southern star Mainland Banner. Picture / Simon Baker

There are many reasons you could make a case for Alta Serena to win tonight's $300,000 Auckland Trotting Cup.

You could argue the 10m headstart she gets over the favourite, Mainland Banner, in a capacity field, is simply too much for the latter to peg back.

Or you could be backing Alta Serena because she has had the perfect preparation and is in the best form of her career.

And, if you were a really tough judge, you could suggest Mainland Banner hardly raced up to her amazing best when winning her Alexandra Park debut last Friday.

Then there is co-trainer John Green's reason why Alta Serena should win tonight: She might simply be the best horse in the race!

"I think she is at least as good as Mainland Banner and could be even better," says Green, going into the 3200m thriller. "I definitely don't think Mainland Banner is better than us so I don't see how she can give us a 10m start and beat us.

"If she can do that then I'll admit she is better, but nothing I have seen so far has convinced me there is anything between them."

Green is obviously biased but he may also have a point.

Mainland Banner's New Zealand Cup win suggests she is the best pacer in New Zealand, leaving Alta Serena and Howard Bromac to compete for second position.

But the difference between Mainland Banner and Alta Serena is, if anything, probably only a length or two. Tonight Alta Serena's handicap start may be worth 10 lengths.

She is usually a good standing start horse and if she maintains that tonight she should settle in the first three or four. Mainland Banner, even with a sensational start, will almost certainly end up trapped in the second half of the field.

That means Alta Serena's driver Brent Mangos can keep an eye on his arch-rival and stay in front of Mainland Banner, with the option of even posting her three wide if he wants.

Then the question is whether Mainland Banner is good enough to sit parked outside Alta Serena for even 800m and still beat her.

The answer is probably no.

When you start making that argument then Green has a powerful ally in Mangos.

"Mainland Banner is very, very good but this mare [Alta Serena] is too," says Mangos.

"You wouldn't think she could sit parked outside us and beat us."

Green and Mangos believe the preparation senior co-trainer Brian Hughes has given Alta Serena could not have been better, a confidence which may be one of their key weapons tonight.

"The only other time she has been this well was in the New Zealand Cup," says Green. "She was dead right that day but luck didn't go her way because she got locked away.

"Then in the first Auckland Cup [December 31] we had our slight concerns she was just feeling a hard run she had the week before."

Alta Serena's lead-up could not have been better for tonight.

She won at the workouts a month ago before coming off a 50m handicap to win her only lead-in race, beating Mr Bojangles, race-rival tonight, after giving him a 20m start.

Then she returned to the Alexandra Park workouts last Tuesday for another easy win.

And to top it off, she got the barrier draw (5) her connections were hoping for on Monday.

"We wanted to draw in the middle of the front line and we did so we are happy," said Hughes.

So Alta Serena's cup check list looks pretty good.

Fitness: Check. Track record: Check. Barrier draw: Check. Big advantage over arch-rival: Check.

And camp confidence: Double check.

Which would appear to lead you to one conclusion.

If Alta Serena doesn't get up and beat Mainland Banner tonight, she never will.


Confident camp

* Alta Serena has all the advantages over arch-rival Mainland Banner in tonight's $300,000 Auckland Cup.
* Her co-trainer John Green says even off level marks she could beat the southerner.
* Mainland Banner has won the only meeting between the pair, the New Zealand Cup in November.
* The pair will dominate betting on tonight's race.