Donnelly’s New Zealand Cup dreams may be over for this year, but the majority of her team are racing well and several are in the right races tonight.
She starts the evening with promising filly Opa’s Girl taking on a mix of young and older horses over 2200 metres, but the way she blasted home from way back to win the last start over 1700 meters is something she can win again.
Donnelly has two youngsters in Race 3, including debutante Nazare who has won his last three training sessions and looks perfect on barrier two in the five-horse field.
His section members have suggested he can step straight into race night company without having to improve much and he opened as $1.80 favorite, while the Cambridge trainer’s other representative, Ultimate Lad, was a $31 odds.
For a small field, however, there are a few moving parts in this match, with all three rivals having shown enough to upset the odds-on favorite without any surprises.
Donnelly has the much-improved Final Change in a very even Race 5, but although the three-year-old ran under his best last start, his previous form was very strong in tougher races than he finds himself in tonight.
While $2.80’s favorite words will be hard to catch if she’s in the lead, any push would put Final Change late in the race.
Donnelly rounds off her evening with the free Dragonstone in the main trot and as she heads off 10m above 2200m, if she walks as quickly as possible she can still have a chance of leading and being difficult to catch.
He will be piloted by David Butcher, who not only had winning chances with Hooray Henry and You Little Beauty in tonight’s main pace, but also has a strong book of rides.
Butcher rides the talented little trotting mare Miss Bebe who returns in Race 4 and although she should improve in tonight’s race, having only had one training session to prepare, she will soon be a winner.
Her trainer Rodney Frampton lines up a promising filly in Soul Artist in the final race.
The well-bred daughter of Art Major has won three of her four public races and the only time she was beaten was in March by a subsequent multiple race winner at Tytate.
So between Donnelly, Butcher, Frampton and a few others the Waikato seems to be having a good night north of the Bombays.
For full race entries, click here.
Through Michael Guerinfor Harness Racing New Zealand
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