Change of gear gets best out of Knitting

TRAINER Edwin Batt must have one of the best strike rates in the state after the win of his former Victorian mare Knitting in Launceston on Tuesday night.

Batt has only three horses in work and while Country Way finished a distant last in a class one on Tuesday night, his other two are winners at their most recent starts with Monmouth having won in Launceston just over two weeks ago.

Knitting (Hard Spun-Elim) was having her first start for Batt and after showing blistering early speed to lead, she ran her rivals off their legs to score by 4½ lengths.

The mare arrived at Batt’s stables in February with woeful form.

“I had a call from an old farmer friend of mine at Deniliquin [NSW], Ian Landale, who bred the mare and he thought she might be able to do something worthwhile here in Tassie,” Batt said.

“When she arrived I wasn’t terribly impressed and after a couple of months’ work she did nothing on the training track to instil any confidence. But I put a set of blinkers on her a couple of weeks ago and they just switched her on. In fact the transformation was quite amazing.”