Gavin Lang and Tanabi Bromac will combine in tonight's third Inter Dominion heat
The BIG6 Hunter Cup didn’t prove the fairytale Keith Cotchin hoped for, but he remains a chance of living a harness racing dream before the season is out.
Tonight the Elmore trainer will gear up his first Inter Dominion runner when Tanabi Bromac contests one of the first-round heats at Sydney’s Harold Park.
The classy gelding has recovered from Hunter Cup failure and is one of 14 Victorians in New South Wales for Australasian harness racing’s premier pacing series.
“It’s incredible to think that I’ve got a horse good enough to go around in an Inter Dominion,” Cotchin said.
“I’m used to reading about the series and these horses and watching them on television, but now I’m lucky enough to have one that’s there and it’s just incredible.”
Despite failing to beat home a runner in the BIG6 Hunter Cup, Tanabi Bromac remains one of Victoria’s leading Inter Dominion contenders.
TAB Sportsbet is offering $31 about both he and Cincinnati Kid in the $1 million final on Sunday, March 7, behind only Smoken Up ($6) and Sammy Maguire ($26).
Cotchin said he the 2008 Victoria Derby champion is over his Hunter Cup run, when he had to do too much work to hold an early position and a failed to run out the 3065 metres.
The 2160m of tonight’s third heat, at 9pm, is much more to his liking. The son of Live Or Die will start from barrier six.
Series favourite Monkey King (four) and Cincinnati Kid (five) will be the toughest to beat, while fellow Victorians Few Good Men (one), Our Malabar (seven) and Boris Badenov (10) are also engaged.
“You’d have to say that on barrier draws Monkey King will be hard to beat, but my bloke’s going well and I’d expect him to be in the top three,” Cotchin said.
“He was very tired after the Hunter Cup. He knew he’d been around with the big boys and wasn’t running around bucking and kicking the next morning, but he ate everything and he’s back to normal now.”
The third heat contains more than one-third of Victoria’s Watpac Inter Dominion hopefuls.
The Garden State also has four runners in the final heat – Pacific Charm (one), Karlsruhe (three), Notaswethort (nine) and Prince Benji (10) – at 9.30pm, where Bondy is the odds-on favourite from barrier two.
Victoria’s best chance of a win could be in the second heat, where Smoken Up (eight) and Sammy Maguire (seven) are engaged.
But they have both drawn poorly – inside the back row and outside the front row respectively – and have three-time Inter Dominion champion Blacks A Fake (four) for competition.
The Gunstar is the other Victorian in the second qualifier, while it also has I Am Sam (one) and Baltic Ice (five) in the series opener at 8pm, where Changeover (six), Karloo Mick (six) and Mr Feelgood (10) are the big names.
