500 in sight for Chilcott at Alexandra Park

Friday night (Sep. 23) harness racing heads to Alexandra Park where the first Group One of the Spring will headline a fantastic 11-race programme.

While Caduceus Club Classic and Spring Cup will draw most of the attention on the night, there is also the first North Island heat of the iconic Nevele R Fillies Series along with the 24^th running of the Northern 3YO Stakes.

The latter has attracted a tidy field of nine three-year-old colts and geldings and among them is the talented son of Sweet Lou, Blazing Louie.

The Nicky Chilcott-trained pacer has shown plenty of ability in the early stages of his career having won and placed on two occasions from just five race day starts.

Tim Williams takes the reigns tonight and looks a leading hope of securing Chilcott with her 500^th career training win, an accomplishment no other female trainer has achieved in New Zealand training in their own name.

“I actually really like him and think potentially he’s a really nice horse,” said Chilcott.

“In his last three starts, he has been completely luckless. Tim thought the last start at Alexandra Park he was going to be right in it but locked wheels in the straight just as he was warming up,” she said.

As Chilcott points out, bad draws and back luck have been a feature of Blazing Louie’s three starts since his resumption from a spell in June. To his credit, the three-year-old has never let it affect his desire to be putting in some big strides and fighting his way through the finish line.

“He has been a bit of a work in progress and can be a bit naughty, so we have been looking after him and driving him back in the field and trying to teach him how to settle but I am probably just not as happy with him right at the moment as what I have been.

“What he has got is really really high speed. We haven’t put him to the test and see whether he can stay yet, but he is very very fast. His change-up speed is huge. That will take him a long way and he will probably only get stronger but still very much a work in progress at the moment,” she said.

Blazing Louie has firmed from $5.50 into $4 for tonight’s assignment but his trainer warns she hasn’t been entirely happy with her talented pacer leading into race night.

“When he’s been luckless, I feel like I’ve been really happy with him and thought he was ready to win. Tonight, if he was to get some luck, I wouldn’t say I’m unhappy, but he’s just missing that top 5% of sharpness that he has had previously. If it’s not tomorrow night, he is certainly a horse I have got a big opinion of and think in the future he will turn out to be a very nice horse.

“There are a couple of nice horses in there tonight and on top of his game I think he could beat them, but I am not convinced he is at the moment, we will just have to wait and see,” she said.

With three other stable runners engaged across the eleven-race programme, race one presents the first opportunity for the Cambridge horsewoman to get to the magical 500-win milestone.

Phoebe Majestic (Majestic Son) has been handled largely by stable junior Leah Hibell, but due to a three-week suspension, Chilcott will take the reins behind the one-win trotting mare.

“She’s no star but she’s getting nice and solid, and her manners are getting better, and Leah has done a nice job with her.

“She’s just a handy middle-grade trotter and hasn’t gone a bad race this time in. She went out red hot at Cambridge and watching it live I was a little disappointed, but after watching the replay it wasn’t that bad of a run.

“She got caught wide and they came home in a quick last half. There are probably a few in there I thought she couldn’t beat but I see the John Dickie runner has come out, so she would definitely be a top three chance,” she said.

In the fourth on the card, Chilcott takes the reigns behind her enigmatic stable charge, Mikki Miksta (Always B Miki).

The three-year-old has been a tough horse to follow for punters since his impressive first-up win in November last year. His five runs since his debut victory have been colourful to say the least with his stipe reports always making for an interesting read!

“Excuse my language but what a (expletive) headache he is. He just continues to beat himself; you just wouldn’t get more of a goofball,” laughed Chilcott.

“I thought he could win his last start at Cambridge and just mooch off the gate, let him settle, go round, and sit parked and he would just be too good. Well, I let him mooch off the gate and he decided to run off the track!

“Just every time he throws another curve ball at you, but the penny will drop and when it does, he will definitely win some races as well. He’s probably 12 months away from showing his potential. He’s a really big horse and physically quite immature but he’s a lovely horse and I’m hoping he can show his ability tomorrow night because the owners are starting to tear their hair out much like I am.

“Graeme and Judy Bowen are great supporters of my stable and are great friends and people to train for, but they were thinking about giving up on him. I had to tell them that if I thought he was no good I would have sacked him a long time ago, we just have to be patient and I’m quite sure he will reward them and I’m just hoping it’s soon,” she said.

The ninth on the card will see a cracking field of eleven female trotters do battle over 2700m around the ‘ribbon of light’.

Chilcott lines up Sacred Mountain (Muscle Hill) who is a trotter in form since returning from a spell. She is the winner of her last two starts and looks to be a mare capable of adding to her six race day wins, despite starting to get up in the grades.

SACRED MOUNTAIN SEPTEMBER 8 REPLAY

“In all honesty, I kind of wish I had opted for the other race,” she said.

“Merv was keen to take on the mares and that was our initial plan but then I looked at the field and thought it might not be the best thing for her.

“She is off the back mark of 40m and having to come round a full field of handy mares, she just probably doesn’t get through the line over the 2700m as well as the 2200m either. I’m not saying she can’t win because she is a quality mare but certainly, she is up against it tomorrow night.

“Her win at Cambridge was just super, she could have gone around again. But it was a slightly easier field and over her pet distance. She is a lovely mare and will win more races, but tomorrow night I am not convinced,” she said.

Sacred Mountain looks more than capable of featuring in some of the newly programmed mare’s trots coming up on the calendar with the Group Two mares trot to be run at Addington Raceway on the same card as the Group One New Zealand Trotting Oaks.

With her star trotting filly, KD Royalty (Royal Aspirations), all but certain to travel down and contest the $100,000 feature, Chilcott has given some thought to sending Sacred Mountain south along with Blazing Louie.

“Merv and I have been talking about it, but we are probably not going to decide until further down the track. The 2600m is right at the top of her distance and it will depend on whether they run it as a mobile FFA or have handicap conditions.

“Whether she can beat the best ones I am not sure but when I talked about it with Merv, he said I love a trip, and I’m a bit partial to one myself as long as you are taking the right horse away. The stakes changing up in Auckland over the next month might also change things a bit as they look like they are going to be beefed up as well,” she said.

With plenty of water to go under the bridge before making any decisions about southern sojourns, Chilcott will be looking to get the 500-training win accolade ticked off as soon as possible.

In doing so she would join Natalie Rasmussen, Catherine Butt, and Nina Hope as the only other horsewoman to have achieved the milestone, but as alluded to earlier, no other female trainer has trained 500 winners in their own name.

Having taken out her training license in 1998, Chilcott has averaged a little more than 20 winners a season which is an incredible achievement given she has never trained a large team from her Cambridge base. And while she always dreamed of being a successful horsewoman, you get the sense that never in her wildest dreams did she envisage bringing up the half tonne.

“It’s something back when you first start you think if I can get one winner it would be good. Then you get to ten, and suddenly you get up to 100. When you start out you don’t really know how it is going to work out for you. We all know what a hard game it is and there are a lot of people out there who work tirelessly like I do and don’t get the numbers on the board so to speak. But we do work hard here, and I have had a great team behind me, and a lot of loyal owners, and you can’t achieve these things without them

“I hope I don’t sit on this number as long as I sat on my driving number because that was starting to get annoying. It’s always something you dream about, and I am super proud of what I have achieved and hope I can tick off the 500 and keep kicking on for a while longer yet,” she said.

For complete race fields, click here.

by Brad Reid, for Harnesslink