Son of Sir Lincoln joining David Aiken en route to NA

New Zealand harness racing will see another of its rising Open Class stars leave its shores with Ashburton trainer, Tim White confirming the sale of the five-year-old pacer, Cranbourne (Sir Lincoln) last week.

“He left on Saturday and headed over to Aussie, and from what we understand he will spend the summer there before heading to North America,” said Cranbourne’s co-trainer, Tim White.

“Just with the climate and it being wintertime over in America at the moment they didn’t want to head over there too soon with him. And there are probably some nice races over there in Aussie for him in the short term,” he said.

Cranbourne will join the Victorian stable of David Aiken in the short term.

The G3 Methven Cup winner had struggled to recapture his best form this campaign with a second placing behind Republican Party (Bettor’s Delight) in the G3 Junior FFA on Cup Day his only highlight in seven starts this time in.

“We were disappointed in him a wee bit this whole prep and could never get him 100%,”

“He never showed as good of form as he showed when he went up to Auckland. Some of those runs up there were super. The Methven Cup was big for us, but his first run in Auckland where he sat parked and was beaten into fourth in the Taylor Mile was a real highlight.

“He looked like he was beaten at the bend, and he kicked back and just got beat by some top Open Class horses, so that was probably right up there taking one away on a trip and doing a great job in a race like that,” he said.

CRANBOURNE METHVEN CUP REPLAY

The runs White speaks of were on the back of a gallant spring where the son of Sir Lincoln announced his arrival on the big stage with a 2021 Methven Cup win and a stellar fourth in the G1 NZ FFA on Show Day a month later.

Cranbourne franked that form in the new year with three wins on end including the G3 Fahey Fence Hire FFA, and a gusty second in the G2 4&5YO Championship a week later where he was second to Kango after the latter sat on his back for the majority of the race.

Cranbourne seemed to really respond to the aggressive driving style of Matty Williamson and the pair dished it up to the Open Class stars in the Taylor Mile and Messenger finishing fourth and sixth respectively after sitting parked both starts.

The Auckland form showed that Cranbourne was probably a little unlucky not to have secured one of the slots for the inaugural running of The Race by Grins at Cambridge Raceway at Easter time, given his gate speed, tenacity and form in the lead up.

“It’s a bit of a bugger on our side seeing him go because we probably had some unfinished business and would have liked to give him another crack. We could have possibly given him a let up or started again with him this prep and launched in again,” said White.

“But it is what it is, the owners made their decision, and we will have to do some study of the sales catalogue to try and find his replacement.

“He’s the best horse I’ve been associated with. I was fortunate that when I started to get back into the horses with Dad five years ago, he was just purchased out of the sales, and we have had him the whole way through,” he said.

Cranbourne was the fifth foal out of the one-win Christian Cullen mare, Classiealba and his 12 wins and $205,383 in stakemoney vastly exceed any of the other progeny from the mare at this point in time. First and second foals Blythecliffe (Elsu) and Classie Regal (Stonebridge Regal) were both well tried but only managed to pick up a win and a couple of placings between them.

Cranbourne defied his yearling sales purchase price of $6,000 from the 2018 supplementary sale, having been acquired from the draft of the late Mike Stratford after being deemed to not be commercial enough for the main pacing session in the final sale hosted by PGGW.

“We did everything with him from his progression as a yearling through to the Open Class, so he’s definitely the best one we have had in that period and were probably fortunate that he coincided with One Apollo who was doing a nice job in the trotting races at the time also.

“We liked him from the word go, like that two-year-old win in his debut at Timaru was a great win. We threw him in against the big boys for the remainder of that season and we were happy enough, but he just kept developing. Probably one of his best wins was the Ashburton win where he galloped away and probably paced 2600m instead of the 2400m to catch the mobile, and it gave us the confidence that we could go on a lot further with him,” he said.

Having officially entered into a training partnership with his father, Brent, in September this year, the pair have produced three winners and nine placings with the latest winner coming from talented race mare, Better’s Tart fresh up after six months away from the track.

White suggests it won’t be long before the team is revved up with most recent crop of young horses getting the stamp of approval as the stable searches for a replacement to its now departed Open Class star.

“We have a few yearlings that we have just turned out in the last couple of weeks that have all shown enough to suggest they are all nice enough, so we have good numbers and as I say will be doing some study to find some more yearlings in the new year,” he said.

by Brad Reid, for Harnesslink