Tony Pike’s race strategy before winter hibernation at Ellerslie

Rudyard won his fourth race of the season at Pukekohe in April. Photo / Kenton Wright (race images)

Trainer Tony Pike knows the clock is ticking for his stable stars.

This is why meetings like today’s Ellerslie fixture take on such added importance before the weather changes and the Cambridge horseman and many others put their best horses in hibernation for the winter.

Pike has a strong hand in all three black-type races today at Ellerslie where he can head safe in the knowledge the track won’t get heavy or even soft.

But it won’t be long until the tracks turn wet for a few months on end and Pike and many of our other leading trainers don’t like to have big teams racing during those winter months.

“We have got meetings like tomorrow and the next two weeks at Te Rapa and then we start racing less Saturdays,” says Pike.

“A lot of the better horses don’t like wet tracks but there are also less black-type opportunities in winter and the horses you think are good enough to race at the good carnivals need a break at some stage.

So meetings like this week will be the last race or second last for quite a few of these horses.”

A race-and-repeat type open class horse like Rudyard (R7, No.3) has been set for today’s Manco Easter Handicap since his third in the Aotearoa Classic on Karaka Millions night and Pike says proven Ellerslie form is key.

“We are still finding out what horses like the new track and he is one who does so he has to be a chance - although he does have a wide draw in a good field.”

Pike believes Investigate (R6, No.2) has the right form line to be the horse to beat in the Trelawney Championships but he meets a very even field of potential future middle-distance stars.

“The field is similar to the one he finished second in last start at Trentham without the winner being there,” offers Pike.

“He is getting better all the time and has a good barrier and Billy (Wiremu Pinn, jockey) is riding really well.”

The Trelawney is an interesting race not only because of the depth, with Solidify the most proven contender, but because tempo and tactics could play a key role as it so often the case in Ellerslie 2000-2100m races.

While autumn and eventually winter may be closing in on Pike and our other leading trainers it is even more crucial for a filly like Boss N Highheels (R3, No.8), who gets her first taste of black-type racing in the TAB Star Way Stakes.

She is by Written Tycoon, one of the stallions of the moment who has had remarkable success with very small numbers in New Zealand this season.

For a filly like Boss N Highheels, being a stakes performer at two enormously increases her future broodmare value so a race like today is worth way more than the $100,000 stake for her and favourite Love Poem.

“She is a really good filly and has the natural speed to go forward so I am expecting her to go well,” says Pike.

With so many trainers trying to cash in before the weather turns the Ellerslie programme boasts some great betting races and value options.

The other domestic focus is at Riccarton, with plenty of northerners heading south for similar reasons while Cambridge trainers Andrew Forsman and Shaune Ritchie have winning chances at Mornington today and Randwick hosts another huge meeting.

But away from Ellerslie much of the key Kiwi focus will be on Railway winner Waitak in the A$5 million ($5.4m) Quokka in Perth where he flies the New Zealand flag in the 1200m slot race at 7.45pm (NZ time).

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.