Racing: Wheeler eyes rare steeplechase double

John Wheeler is expecting his luck to change.

The master trainer goes into today's A$141,000 ($168,000) Grand Annual Steeplechase at Warrnambool hoping for a lot better than his disappointment of yesterday.

The Herald spoke to Wheeler moments before yesterday's A$90,000 Galleried Hurdle at Warrnambool and the New Plymouth trainer thought his runner High Season was a good thing.

He probably was.

Brett Scott had High Season trailing the leaders on a ridiculously slow pace when he topped an obstacle with 1200m to run.

Scott went over High Season's head and Wheeler immediately started thinking about today's Grand Annual Steeplechase.

On Easter Monday Wheeler won the Great Eastern Steeplechase at Oakbank for the seventh time when Real Tonic ploughed through the worst track imaginable to score by a wide margin.

The state of the track can be gauged by the fact that Real Tonic's time of 6.33.72 was the slowest Great Eastern run in the 34-year history of the race.

Today Wheeler attempts one of the most difficult doubles in world jumping to try and add the Grand Annual to the Great Eastern in the same year.

"I think he's a very strong chance and much of it is because we've had rain here," said Wheeler from Australia yesterday.

Wheeler fancied his second runner St Steven as much as Real Tonic in the Great Easter until it rained heavily.

Real Tonic simply loves bad footing and the more it rains in western Victoria, the better his chances today.

"I'm happy with his run on the first day on Monday.

"He got back in a big field of 16 horses, he got into trouble and all in all it was a good trial for this race."

Real Tonic has topweight of 67kg this time, but that is only 4.5kg above the minimum weight and Wheeler does not strongly rate any of the horses on the lowest weight.

"Chakra is the horse to beat and he is best when the track is not too bad.

"The top two stand out and if the track comes up rain-affected then we probably hold a decent hand over Chakra."

By New Zealand standards Oakbank is an unusual spectacle in that the track is undulating to a remarkable degree and every fence is different.

Warrnambool is something different again.

It is undulating and is made more difficult by the fact that horses have continually to jump off different legs.

"They've actually sanitised the race to a degree," says Wheeler.

"It has always been the best spectacle and the most exciting because the emphasis has always been on the jockey.

"But they've cut down the size of the fences and nothing you jump now is higher than your knee."

Real Tonic will be reunited with Brett Scott.

The outstanding Melbourne-based New Zealand jumps jockey won the world's richest jumps race, the Nakayama Grand Jump, on Melbourne-trained Karasi for the second time two weeks ago.

Scott came back to Adelaide to ride St Stephen in the Great Eastern, only to find that the very heavy track much more favoured stablemate Real Tonic.