News

Four year old mare American Tart has shown her massive ability on many occasions throughout her short career, but yesterday at Ashburton, she showed another string to her bow, coming from last at the 400m to beat a good field of mares over the mile.

He has only re-joined the Robert Dunn stable recently, but a good second to Say My Name at last week's Orari trials convinced John Dun that there was at least another win in the old boy Graduate Under Fire.

A stunning win fresh up sees Franco Cristiano rate as a great chance in this year's JLT Futurity at Cambridge tomorrow. He will be joined in the race by stablemates Little Rascal and Robbie Burns that both rate good chances also.

Absolutely brilliant through the autumn, Say My Name looked set for a big campaign in the north including the Messenger and the Harness Jewels before injury again derailed plans. Seven months later he is back and on target for Monday's Westport Cup over the 3200m.

Purchased out of a Forbury claimer for just $1500, Cimarron has proven a great buy for popular junior driver Craig Smith.

An impressive trial on the track last weekend signalled that he would be a tough horse to beat and Alta Maestro didn't disappoint his followers tonight at Alexandra Park in the first heat of the Young Guns.

A convincing winner last week in junior drivers company, Letspendanitetogetha was again too good tonight combining with Craig Smith for a week-week double.

While things have been a bit quiet on the winners front the last couple of weeks, this weekend has been a far better one with four wins coming over the course of a busy weekend.

If the quality of the opposition is not tough enough on its own, the Franco Nelson camp have to face up to the difficulty of the draw also, in tonight's final at Gloucester Park, Perth.

Following the second round of heats run at Bunbury on Tuesday evening, Franco Nelson sits just outside the top ten and is needing a top three finish in Friday evening's final round to make the final.

It is not often that John heads down to Forbury Park, especially with no runners from the RJ Dunn team in. But tonight he travels to Forbury for a very rare Wednesday meeting in Dunedin and he looks to have a number of very good drives.

An unlucky 6th at his last start in Lazarus' New Zealand Cup, Franco Nelson is now in Perth and is set to lock horn's with many of Australasia's best in this year's Inter-Dominion series.

The weekend has been a good one from a stable point of view, with two wins at Timaru yesterday and a further win at Motukarara today.

A seven month period away from the track has done little in quelling the huge talent that American Tart has. A big win on cup day signalled to driver John Dunn that she is right on track for today's target the Southern Mares Classic.

The path to this year's New Zealand Trotting Cup has been a smooth one for Franco Nelson by and large. Even a less than ideal draw is not going to knock the confidence levels ahead of tomorrow's big race.

At the start of this season Franco Nelson had been winless for 26 months and had been through a few stable changes. But what those closest to him knew was that things were on the up after an important operation to improve a bone chip from the horse's fetlock. The old Nelson was back they sensed and maybe a chance to go round in this year's New Zealand Cup, a cup that he was narrowly beaten in two years ago by the great mare Adore Me.

A convincing winner of the Te Awamautu Cup first up, Robbie Burns was disappointing second up in the Holmes DG, However, on Friday night at Alexandra Park, he was a good winner over the 2700m in a smart 3.21.4 for the 2700m stand.

It has been a case of all going to plan so far for Franco Nelson in his quest for New Zealand Cup glory and tomorrow's Kaikoura Cup sees another opportunity for him to measure up against many of his opponents in this year's two mile feature.

While he has been off the racetrack for going on two years, former age group star Alta Orlando looked like a star of today in his resuming run at today's Rangiora workouts.

Just as the spring racing looks to go up another notch in the next few weeks, so too does the quality of horseflesh around the stable step up also.

Just as it was a fortnight ago for the New Brighton Cup, tonight's Canterbury Classic looks another belter of a race with all of the big hitters involved.