Easy time of it for Sheriff before Jewels
Nigel McGrath is going to stick with a proven formula of success with New Zealand Derby winner, Sheriff.
And that means that harness racing fans may only see one of the real rising stars of the sport one more occasion before the Harness Jewels at Cambridge on June 2.
Understandably, the tough colt took a couple of days to get over his New Zealand record-breaking performance in the premier Group One for three-year- old pacers and his trainer has been in no real rush to bring him right back up to speed.
‘‘He was tired for a couple of days, as you could probably imagine,’’ he said. ‘‘But he only had three days off and I’ve kept him ticking over here at home.’’
McGrath is adamant that the best of Sheriff comes when he’s lightly tried and for that reason he’s thinking he might only need to line him up once in the month of May before heading north to prepare for the 3YO Emerald at the Jewels.
And that’s likely to be at one of the Premier meetings at Addington next month.
‘‘He’s not really a horse we’ve asked a lot of in terms of racing him frequently, but we’ve got the best results when he’s had one run before a big race.
‘‘His run the week before the Derby was unreal, Blair struggled to pull him up that night and then he obviously came out and did what he did in the Derby so it seems to really suit him.
‘‘He’s a naturally fit sort of horse so it doesn’t take much to get him up to speed so just the one run before we head north will, at this stage, be enough I think.’’
Almost a fortnight on from one of the biggest nights of his training career, McGrath admitted to still having to pinch himself at times.
‘‘There’s points where I have to stop and think about it to believe it’s real,’’ he said.
‘‘The Derby has always been a race I’ve wanted to win and I’ve gone close a couple of times and had some perform pretty poorly in it too, but it’s a great feeling to have ticked it off.
‘‘You’re in the game for those sorts of moments, it will take a while to completely get over the thrill of it all.’’