A large crowd is expected at Tamworth for the Golden Guitar meeting this Friday night.
A trip to Tamworth for the Country Music Festival was something trainer Michael Day Jnr and his wife Kelly had always planned to do and when the opportunity arose to take two horses to the Golden Guitar this year during the festival they packed their two children in the car and headed north from their base at Young. It has become a profitable holiday after qualifying both horses for the $20,000 feature on Friday.
“Kelly had mentioned that she would like to go to Tamworth for the Country Music Festival and with two horses eligible for the Golden Guitar I thought why not take the family and two horses to Tamworth and have a week away from home,” Day Jnr said.
“I thought Artstandin was my leading chance and Leading Judge was coming along more as a travelling companion but in the end Leading Judge won his heat and Artstandin ran second in his but he made it through to the final anyway so I’m hoping for some luck in the final.”
Day Jnr will take the drive on Artstandin and he is hoping his father Michael Day Snr will drive Leading Judge.
“Kelly and I bought Artstandin off the Douglas boys in Victoria from the internet and he has done a great job for us since he arrived. I will be driving him and he has drawn gate five.”
“I have left a message on Dad’s phone but I haven’t heard back from him but the plan at the moment is for him to drive Leading Judge, he drew barrier one and has been in good form of late so it is a good reward for the horse because of his consistency.”
Artstandin won a heat and final series at Leeton’s Carnival Of Cups and Day Jnr is confident of another strong performance.
“He’s only had a handful of runs for us and has only drawn the front row twice but both times we asked him to leave the gate and he was very good although he was drawn a lot closer in both of those runs.”
“Leading Judge raced in the final at Leeton and didn’t have much luck. To be honest there isn’t much between the two horses so it will all come down to which one gets the better run but they will both be competitive.”
