Head Em Up is Derby bound

The Marburg based Gillespie stable is hoping next month’s NSW Trotters Derby will provide a meal ticket to the Group 1 $150,000 Haras Des Trotteurs Great Square for their rising harness racing star Head Em Up (Waterloo Sunset). 

The former New Zealand three-year-old completed a hat trick of wins when he outclassed his rivals at Albion Park a fortnight ago rating 1:57.5 for the 1660 metre sprint trip. 

Head Em Up is raced by Melbourne businessman Mark Gurry who purchased the horse from New Zealand in November last year and entrusted the son of Waterloo Sunset to young trainer Tayla Gillespie. 

Tayla’s father Shaun said the relationship with Gurry stems back to Kasyanov who finished runner up behind Sundons Gift in the 2010 Inter Dominion Trotting Championship at Moonee Valley. 

“We’ve kept in touch with Mark and he has since sent us Majestic Lavros, Creed and a promising filly named Downsouth Daisy,” Gillespie said. 

Gillespie said Head Em Up was given a month off when he arrived. 

“We had to get a fair bit of condition on him and he has just gone from strength to strength and getting better with each run,” he said. 

Gillespie is bullish about the horse’s prospect in the coming months. 

“He is the best trotter I’ve sat behind and I’ve driven some nice ones,” he said. 

“Mentally he’s a bit of a fruit loop but he’s got a big engine, every horse has a bottom but we haven’t found his yet.” 

Gillespie is resigned to the fact that a forward showing at Menangle in the Derby will be a pre requisite to receiving an invitation to the Great Square. 

Only two invitations are issued to three year olds in the Great Square and star Victorian filly Rockinwithattitude has already been allocated one of them. 

“We were hoping, being the state’s best three-year-old trotter, that an invitation would come our way but we’ve been told they will wait until after the NSW Trotters Derby,” he said. 

Meanwhile Victorians are likely to get the opportunity to see Head Em Up in the flesh later in the year when he hopes to emulate the deeds of his fellow Queenslander Not As Promised who took out the Victoria Trotters Derby Final. 

“At this stage we are planning to head for the Victoria Derby heats,” he said. 

by John Dunne, for Harnesslink