Castana leads the charge for McGowans tonight

Dave McGowan isn’t surprised by his harness racing stable’s hot form, he just had to be patient waiting for it.

McGowan and his wife Clare trained four winners in seven days last week, with three Alexandra Park winners and one at Cambridge on Tuesday.

That comes after Liaison won a $35,000 Metro Trot Final at Alexandra Park last month to gives their stable their biggest month of success in a few years but while McGowan, one of the gentlemen of northern harness, is thrilled he is not surprised.

“We knew we had horses with talent, we just had to wait for some of them to put it together,” he says.

“We have 26 horses in work and 22 of them are trotters. We love training trotters but they are a lot of work.

“We have some lovely two and three-year-olds as well so we have some exciting horses around us and it is nice to be able to go to The Park and win races.”

Four of the in-form team head to the Alexandra Park meeting tonight which will play the support role to the huge night at Addington.

The McGowans have last-start winner Castana (Quaker Jet) and the usually reliable Liaison in the main trot (Race 7), the On Track – Strength in Racing Handicap Trot, which has drawn a small but tidy field.

“We love them both but I think Castana is actually the best horse in the stable,” McGowan told HRNZ.

“He has taken a while to come to it but he is an open class horse and one day we think he can win a major race.

“It won’t be this year or maybe not even in the next 18 months but he will win a big one.” 

Castana (R7, No.1) beat many of those he meets tonight last Friday but comes in up to 15m worse off so will need to be right at his peak in a race where Liaison could also threaten if he produces his best.

“I don’t know what happened last start (gallop at 450m) but he is a chance almost every week.”

Earlier in the card the McGowans line up Love On Line and It Ain’t Me Babe in Race 3, the Border Fencing Services Handicap Trot, the latter winning in a 1:59.7 mile last start but copping a 10m handicap tonight because of that.

“I think for sheer talented Love On Line might be better but she is still getting there while It Ain’t Me Babe is a big strong beautiful mare but she can be a bit timid.

“She needs some life experience,” laughs McGowan.

Tonight’s feature, the Sweet Lou at Woodlands – Tender Closes 1 Nov Handicap Pace, sees a small field racing for a great $20,000 stake considering they don’t have to take on the big boys of open class pacing while throughout the card smart pacers like Hawkeye Pierce (R2, No.7), Wicked Wanda (R4, No.5) and The Jolly Roger (R8, No.6) get their chances albeit from tricky draws.

For complete race entries, click here

by Michael Guerin, for Harness Racing New Zealand