Krug emphatic in emotional win for Dalgety family

Friday night (Oct. 21) harness racing action at Addington Raceway saw the Cran & Chrissie Dalgety-trained Krug (Bettor’s Delight) bursting back into New Zealand Cup calculations with an emphatic win a race with huge sentiment for the Dalgety family.

The New Zealand Metropolitan Trotting Club and IRT honoured some of the former legends of the New Zealand racing industry over the eleven-race card, with the likes of Roy Purdon, Jack Smolenski, and Cecil Devine having a race named in their honour.

The late Jim Dalgety was another to feature in the programme and there was some serendipity about the fact that Krug would contest the race in his honour along with Jim’s grandson, Carter Dalgety, in the sulky.

It’s been a rocky campaign so far for the former age group champion and like Copy That (American Ideal) a night earlier, some pundits were happy to write Krug off given he was to start from an enormous back mark of 40m and give some handy pacers a fair head start from the tapes.

Bookies opened Krug at an $11 quote for tonight’s assignment, and while there was some support for the horse, the New Zealand Cup hopeful was only the fifth elect of punters in a ten-horse field that was missing some of the stars he has become accustomed to facing.

From the moment the tapes released, it was clear that the Dalgety camp were on a mission to catapult their charge back into New Zealand Cup calculations and Krug made short work of his back mark, finding himself in a gorgeous position early thanks to some beautiful work from his young junior driver.

With The Falcon (Art Major) and Gerard O’Reilly setting a quick tempo up front, Dalgety chose not to settle at the rear of the field and entering the back straight for the first time, kept rolling forward, which ultimately proved to be a masterstroke.

From there he was able to secure the one-one on the back of Dashing Major (Art Major) and with a helmet to follow for the remainder of the journey, Krug was fair bolting, and it was evident Dalgety had a lapful of horse.

When they peeled for their run entering the straight for the final time, Krug showed his class to dash away from his rivals and give a firm reminder to those selecting the balance of the New Zealand Cup field.

Remember the name!

Speaking with Nigel Armstong of Harness Racing Unhinged after the race, the young junior driver was clearly rapt to pick up the win in the race named in his grandfather’s honour.

“It’s right up there that one as the best one of my short career with this horse,” said Dalgety.

“First things first were to get him away and that went to plan pretty well, he’s stepped quite good his last two starts.

“He was just going along that well I didn’t want to take too much of a hold of him, I wanted him to get into a rhythm and we were lucky we flushed one out and got the one one. But he was just charging the whole way, to be honest. It was just a matter of when I pulled him out.

“The Cup is definitely back on the radar, as you can see, he has absolutely cruised it. It’s funny like last week everyone probably wrote him off, but it was just a simple error where he jumped over something on the track. I’m stoked to be associated with this horse,” he said.

His father Cran was looking a little weary in post race celebrations, with the emotion of the race a contributing factor, but so too the reassurance that the campaign of his star pacer was back on track with the brilliant performance.

“It’s one of those races it’s more of a relief to win then it was a thrill,” he said.

“We’ve had a few dramas behind the scenes with the horse. Blair’s done a great job but he’s the driver of Copy That for the Cup and we’d love to have Blair, but it’s led to Carter getting his turn and he unfortunately had a gallop for him last week and run last week.

“You could put another hundred legend sponsorship names into tonight and it was a thrill to obviously win one named after Dad. Sometimes you dont realise how much these guys have achieved until they are gone, so we will just cherish the moment and take it all in.

“It was interesting because we were getting down the order of maybe missing the 15 and there are a few sort of chomping on our heels. Hopefully that win keeps him in the 15 and we would love to be here on the second Tuesday in November. What happens after that who knows, but when you think there are some 3000 horses bred a year, just to be in the mix with the final 15 for the Cup, it’s a small pecking order, and just to be there is a thrill,” he said.

KRUG REPLAY

Krug paced the 2600m journey in a solid 3:12.5 from his 40m back mark and picked up win number 18 of his career at just his 41st start.

Sitting at 12th on the New Zealand Cup rankings, the win solidifies his position with just over a fortnight until the Cup Week feature.

With the G2 Flying Stakes at Ashburton on Monday, the likes of Got You Covered, Old Town Road, McAndrew Aviator and Cranbourne are going to have to do something special if they are to climb up the rankings, with all the four on the outside looking in.

For complete Addington Raceway results, click here.

by Brad Reid, for Harnesslink