‘Coaster’ Howe dreams of huge NZ Cup upset
Come Tuesday, the big stables will attract the most attention on New Zealand Cup day at Addington, and rightly so.
Rolleston’s Mark Purdon and Natalie Rasmussen will likely train half the card and will probably win the day’s $750,000 cup feature (3200m) with either of the pre-post favourites, Thefixer and Spankem.
But one local man with a much smaller team is also in the mix and will line up a horse in both the cup and the day’s feature trot, the NZ Trotting Free-For-All.
John Howe, universally known as ‘‘Coaster’’, is a man of the people and if either Nandolo ($101 fixed odds) or Didjabringthebeers ($31) can find their way in to the money on
Tuesday, it will take him half an hour to get back to the stable, such will be the number of hands he has to shake.
Loyal as they come, well-liked by his peers and a real social butterfly, that’s Coaster.
He’s now trained 175 winners and last season’s 19 was a career best.
His association with fellow ‘‘West Meltoners’’, Phil and Christine Smith started over a beer at their local watering hole The Swamp.
‘‘They were locals at the pub and one day they approached me over a beer and asked if I would train a few for them as their current trainer, Kevin Fairbairn, was semi-retiring.
‘‘And it’s just grown from there, really.
‘‘They’ve been bloody great for me and it’s all come from socialising.’’ Nandolo is one of the outsiders in the cup, but clockwatchers have been quietly impressed with his last two runs in open company, and there is a real belief that he can snag some prize money with the right trip.
‘‘Ideally, the plan will be to lob three-fence behind two favourites.
‘‘I would have thought that was his perfect trip, but do plans ever really fall in to place?’’
Nandolo, a five-year-old by Betterthancheddar, has found himself in the top grade a year quicker than expected, but he has flourished.
‘‘I always thought he would be a cup horse, but probably next year.
‘‘Then when the time came for his first race for the season, they capped the field at rating 80 and he was an 81, so he went in with the big boys.’’
Nandolo is a horse that has been prone to switching off at times, especially in front, but the hot speed of the top grade, and being driven in behind, has unleashed him, according to Howe.