Bet N Win
YOUNG Kiwi trotting star Bet N Win is coming to Australia early to prepare for the Brisbane Inter Dominion.
Co-trainer Stacey White revealed the five-year-old is booked on a June 17 flight from Auckland to Sydney.
Bet N Win won't race in NZ before then, instead waiting for a 2300m trotting free-for-all at Menangle on June 21.
“It’s the best option. The only race here was in Auckland and he’d have been off at least 30m,” she said.
“I think Bob (Butt, driver) is looking forward to having a spin around Menangle on him.”
The first round of Inter Dominion heats are at Albion Park on July 5.
With growing doubts on Keayang Zahara heading to Brisbane, Bet N Win looks set to challenge for prepost favouritism for the $500,000 trotting final on July 19.
“We’re thrilled to have a horse good enough to take and it’s great to be going because he wasn’t going just a few days before the Rowe Cup, but he won that so well it turned everything around.”
Bet N Win hasn’t raced since the Rowe Cup win on May 2, which took him to 12 wins from just 22 starts.
Importantly, the Rowe Cup is 3200m and this year’s Brisbane trotting final is a gruelling 3157m.
Bet N Win will return to the scene of his aborted Aussie campaign last year.
He won an Albion Park race on July 6 and was a commanding favourite for the Group 1 Great Square before a hoof issue derailed him.
White said her husband David (White) would take Bet N Win to Australia and stable with training legend Vic Frost and Gail Geeson as they did last year.
“They’re about 90 minutes from Albion Park, but train right near the beach and this horse loves the beach,” she said.
“That’s where he’s been lately, at Bob’s (Butt) place keeping up to the mark and spending time at the beach, but he’s back home and into it again from tomorrow (Monday).”
Bet N Win and star veteran Oscar Bonavena are clearly NZ’s best hopes in either division of the Inter Dominion.
The Mark and Nathan Purdon-trained Oscar Bonavena is already in Australia and could have the first of his lead up races next weekend.
Adam Sanderson will drive him until Mark Purdon returns from a Canadian holiday.
PHOTO: HRNZ/Race Images NZ
