Gallagher gets his chance to strike

With champion harness racing reinsman Robbie Morris campaigning at the Breeders Crown semi-finals in Victoria on Saturday night, in-form young reinsman Josh Gallagher gets his chance to strike at Tabcorp Park Menangle.

Top of his busy night, Gallagher gets his chance to drive one of the KerryAnn Morris stable’s stars, Funky Monkey in a discretionary trotters’ mobile over the marathon 3009m distance.

Being set for the Inter Dominion Trotters Championship which begins in a couple of weeks, Funky Monkey has been installed a $2.50 favourite, despite being given a 30m backmark in Race 7 against a quality field of square-gaiters, including Blake Fitzpatrick’s impressive trotter One Majic Kenny.

Gallagher has been in stunning form with a winner at almost every meeting where he has competed in recent weeks and gets the opportunity to add to his tally of 102 wins already this season with 220 placings and more than a million in earnings from his efforts.

Another of his top prospects tonight will be golf professional Peter Kohlsdorf’s bargain-buy gelding Petes Said So, who scored an easy win at Menangle on Tuesday in a 1:52 mile rate and is backing up tonight in what the gelding’s owner hopes will be two Menangle wins in the space of five days.

Kohlsdorf, who runs one of Australia’s biggest golf stores, has a lifetime love affair with harness racing and races a team of pacers with the Lucky Lodge stables just outside the gates of Tabcorp Park Menangle.

While he freely rates the currently spelling Petes Big Jim as the best horse he has owned, he is thrilled by the steady improvement that Petes Said So has been showing, despite several months of hard racing.

“He’s just thriving on it,” said Kohlsdorf.

“He has such terrific gate speed and after talking over his prospects with Robbie this week, I think he can lead again tonight from gate five.

“And if he can find the front, I don’t think Josh will be handing up to anything else in that race.

“His effort on Tuesday to clear out and win in a pretty quick time gave us a real thrill . . . but I think he can go even faster.

“Hopefully we’ll see that turn of foot tonight.”

Petes Said So has been listed at $13 in early markets for Race 4, behind $2.50 favourite Jimmy Locke and Morris’s other runner Ziggy Rocks ($5.50).

To view fields for Menangle on Saturday night click here.

By Michael Court for HRNSW