Homebush Lad likely favourite for Gore feature

Eleven year old gelding Homebush Lad (Mach Three) ticks a lot of boxes when analysing his chances for Sunday’s Gore Town and Country Summer Cup at the Gore harness meeting on the grass.

Trained by Greg and Nina Hope, fourteen of Homebush Lads sixteen wins have been on the grass, he’s won fifteen races from the stand and has a great record over the staying distance.

“Around this time of year he seems to come into his own. He loves the grass track racing, loves the races that are over a bit more distance and when the tracks are a bit testing,” regular driver Ben said.

He recently won the Waikouaiti Cup and he ran second to Buckskin in last weekend’s Hororata Cup at Rangiora.

“That run was very good. He got second behind a horse that’s in very good form as well. We had to give him a twenty metre head start. While Buckskin won easily, I think we beat the rest of them just as easily off the handicap we started off.”

Homebush will face seven rivals at Gore and will be driven by Kerryn Tomlinson as Hope is committed to driving at Banks Peninsula.

“Without being disrespectful of the others, in his current form and with what he’s done in his last three starts I’d like to think that he’d be pretty hard to beat.”

by Bruce Stewart, for Harnesslink