Gary Hoban steers Acacia Ridge to the front during his recent track record victory at Maryborough. By Tanya McDermott
THE two top-ranked trotters in Australia are poised to lock horns at the 2007 Cranbourne Pacing Cup meeting.
The connections of speed machines Acacia Ridge and Sundons Gift both indicated this week that they were targeting the $25,000 Group 3 Cranbourne Trotters’ Cup. This is the principal support race on the 1 December Cup program and promises to bring together a star-studded field.
Acacia Ridge and Sundons Gift have met twice previously with Acacia Ridge reigning supreme on each occasion. The landscape has changed considerably since the two clashed at Maryborough’s famous Redwood Day meeting on 21 July, however, when five metres separated the duo. Sundons Gift has raced on after the Maryborough assignment, winning four of his subsequent seven runs including the Australasian Breeders’ Crown Graduate Open Trot at Ballarat and two $20,000 Moonee Valley features.
He impressed winning his most recent start off a 30-metre backmark in the Group 3 The George Gath at harness racing headquarters on 10 November and will now go straight into the Cranbourne Trotters’ Cup, according to trainer-driver Chris Lang.
“Stablemates Countessa Hest and Right Interest are also on target for Cranbourne, although I expect them both to run in the $20,000 Group 3 Chris Howe Trotters’ Cup at Moonee Valley on 24 November in the lead-up,” he said. “The only one of my leading lights likely to by-pass Cranbourne is Flying Hardwick.”
Acacia Ridge is one of the most exciting standardbreds in the nation. He has not raced since his Redwood Day success, but is on target for a racetrack return according to trainer-driver Gary Hoban.
“He’s had three recent trials and improved in each,” Hoban said, adding that a Bendigo trial success last Sunday morning was particularly satisfying.
“He did some work in the run and still did it reasonably well within himself. It was also the best he’s pulled up after a solid hit-out this preparation.
“He came through the trial a treat and each day his work is getting a little bit better,” he said.
Acacia Ridge boasts 18 wins and four placings from 26 starts and was unbeaten in seven runs as a five-year-old in the 2006-07 season. In fact, the unfashionably bred son of standard-bred show horse Anvil Lad has not tasted defeat in his past 14 consecutive starts.
“With a little bit of luck, he’ll run at Moonee Valley this Saturday night and then go to Cranbourne,” Hoban said. “If everything unfolds as planned, he’ll then go straight into the $100,000 Group 1 SEW-Eurodrive Australian Trotting Grand Prix at Moonee Valley on 8 December, followed by the $50,000 Group One SEW-Eurodrive Bill Collins Trotters’ Mile a week later.”
Hoban said with those two races under his belt, he should be 95 percent fit for the main races that were obviously his principal target.
“We know races are a lot harder than trials and we’re going into this preparation with a realistic outlook,” he said. “We can’t expect a horse who’ll return a free-for-aller in the city and country to just keep winning,” Hoban said.
