Australia's most exciting squaregaiter Down Under Muscles will be looking to turn the tables on Sundons Gift at Cranbourne this Saturday night
Billed as the much anticipated maiden clash between the champion and the challenger – the master and the apprentice – last month’s NSW Trotters Mile at Menangle certainly didn’t disappoint.
Separated by just 1.5 metres – and more than a cricket pitch clear of their closest rival – as they hit the line, living legend Sundons Gift and his heir apparent Down Under Muscles defied the four-year disparity in their birth certificates to ignite a rivalry set to travail the remainder of the season.
And with the first of many rematches scheduled for Saturday night in Cranbourne’s inaugural hosting of the Group 1, $60,000 Bill Collins Trotters Mile Chris Alford is hoping for more of the same.
“It (the NSW Trotters Mile) certainly was a great race,” the Bolinda based horseman said. “Both horses just went super and hopefully they can put on another great show this week.
“I’m really looking forward it. To be honest I wouldn’t have been disappointed if Sundons Gift had gone away from us again over the last 50 yards or so last time, but to my bloke’s credit he dug deep right to the line.
“That does give us a lot of confidence going forward.”
Like at Menangle, Alford’s flying five-year-old has been gifted a gun draw at Cranbourne, but with the striking son of Muscles Yankee still to prove he can muster any more than a meander from the mobile start it appears certain he will once again be spotting his dual Inter Dominion winning foe a handy start.
But as Alford concedes, it’s not that there will be a margin to bridge but whether it’s a bridge too far that will determine whether his superstar can turn the tables on Sundons Gift in Victoria’s richest and most prestigious squaregaiter’s sprint.
“Hopefully we’ll settle a bit closer this time around from the good draw, but I won’t be hunting him out or anything like that,” the champion reinsman asserted.
“I just want to be within a couple of lengths of them at the half (mile). If we can get within that sort of striking distance I think we’d be very hard to hold out.
“Really I’ve got no doubt that for speed over a couple of hundred metres he’d be up there with anything, but as a sit-sprinter we’ll always be giving a horse like Sundons Gift an advantage in the run.
“And it will be harder to make up ground from the back this weekend than it was at Menangle, so we can only hope that we get away well enough to be in that strike zone or we’ll probably have to settle for second again.”
