“I think most of the other winners of the scholarship have been more thoroughbred based but the organisers were amazing to deal with and I was thrilled to win it,” says Dalgety.
“The money will help me travel to learn more and get better at my craft so I head to the States on July 8 and could be there for six to eight weeks.”
Dalgety’s trip will be enormously aided by his schoolboy hero and now friend Dexter Dunn being one of the biggest names in US driving, while Dalgety this week had his licence to drive in races up there approved.
“I will be able to stay with Dex and learn from him and it sounds like a few of the ex-Kiwi trainers up there will give me some starter drives at the smaller tracks,” he explains.
“I have always loved US harness – I think it is something handed down from my dad and granddad, and I can’t wait to get up there and start learning.”
Kiwi harness fans don’t have to worry about losing Dalgety, who sits seventh on the open drivers’ premiership, to the US full-time.
“I still see my future being here for the next five years and maybe I will never live there full-time.
“But one thing Dex told me keeps running through my head, he said just by going up there and learning I will be a better driver when I come back home.”
Dalgety is four wins clear of Sam Thornley on the national junior driver’s premiership and believes he has at least two good winning chances at Addington tonight.
Ragazzo Major is a beautifully related 3-year-old now living up to his breeding and chasing three wins on end tonight.
“He is a really big horse so time has helped him but he is getting there and I am sure he can win again, although the Hope horse [Wild Willow, No 6] could be hard to beat.
“Franco Sinatra [Race 7] has his first standing start and will be fitter for his couple of runs back so I think he will go well, but these handicap races can be tricky depending on how they are run.”
Dalgety suggests his bolter for the night could be Woodlea Jewel (race 9, No 9) who has been working as if an improved performance is in the offing.
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s racing editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse-racing carnivals.
