Campbell hunts dollars with Pence
‘‘He’s been a bit highly-strung but he’s starting to put it all together now.’’ Trainer Patrick Campbell on Hunta Pence
Patrick Campbell has two Trentham contenders at the top of their games while their stablemate may be in indifferent form, but capable of turning it around.
The Hastings trainer has the last-start winners Hunta Pence and Scandalo engaged on Saturday while Goodsav is the enigma of the team and hopes are pinned on a gear addition to bring out the best in the stakes performer.
Hunta Pence will step out in the Kamada Park Summer Cup (2400m) off the back of a 2100m victory at Otaki.
‘‘For the last couple of months I’ve been looking at this race over 2400m to assess his chances of where we go in the future,’’ Campbell said.
‘‘He’s been a bit highly-strung, but he’s starting to put it all together now.’’
As a son of Shocking and a Savabeel mare, Scandalo has a pedigree to suggest he will be suited to longer trips but the opposite has been the case with all five of his wins over sprint distances.
He wasn’t extended to claim an open 1400m event on his home track on New Year’s Day and will tackle Saturday’s New World Hutt Valley Handicap (1000m).
‘‘Type-wise, he’s a short-coupled horse and the way it’s turned out I haven’t thought beyond 1400m for him,’’ Campbell said.
‘‘I’ve wanted to run him down the straight course for some time, he has a bit of trouble on the bends and changes stride.’’
Goodsav, who was twice stakesplaced as a three-year-old, has been a source of frustration.
‘‘She’s a funny horse and I wouldn’t say she’s not genuine, she’s inclined to star gaze all the time and loses concentration with horses around her,’’ Campbell said.
‘‘I’ve taken the blinkers off her and put on a brow band and she’s been working very well so it will be interesting to see how she goes.’’
❚ Peter Williams is happy to roll the dice with two talented fiveyear-old mares on Saturday’s Karaka Million night at Ellerslie, despite impediments facing the pair.
The Byerley Park trainer will saddle Caprikosa in the Westbury Classic (1400m) and Symphonic in the Windsor Park Stud City Of Auckland Cup (2400m), both mares set to race in the colours of Barneswood Farm’s Sarah Green and Ger Beemsterboer.
Drawing barrier 14 with Caprikosa was a blow to Williams and his co-trainer and wife Dawn, but the couple have pledged to press on with their charge, who ran fifth in the same race last year.
‘‘We’re running, but we’re really going to be up against it from that gate. We don’t know what to expect because at some stage of the race, she’s going to have to do some work,’’ Williams said.
The likelihood is that Caprikosa will tuck back at the start and Mark Du Plessis will ride for luck, according to Williams, who can’t fault the Alamosa mare’s condition leading into the set-weights and penalties fillies and mares feature.
‘‘Her work has been super,’’ he said. ‘‘The rail is back in the true position which helps and the track on Boxing Day didn’t suit her. She just wasn’t that comfortable on it.’’
Caprikosa has won five of her 16 starts and looked up to stakes company, but TAB bookmakers don’t expect that to happen this weekend, pricing her as a $31 outsider in a market headed by the Murray Baker and Andrew Forsman pair of Lizzie L’amour ($4) and Coldplay ($4.20).
Caprikosa’s stablemate Symphonic is rated a better chance at $14 in the City Of Auckland Cup and Williams believes there is plenty of upside with the O’reilly mare despite her failing in the Karaka Cup (2200m) at Ellerslie last start.
‘‘She was a bit disappointing, but then Mark felt she might have been a run short,’’ Williams said.
‘‘She went up to win, but then just battled the last bit. She’s worked well since and she’s definitely improved and that’s why we’ve decided to run her again.
‘‘I might have been a bit soft on her but she’s tightened up and she’s not the worst horse in the race.’’