No laughing matter now as Dee Roe’s a serious cup hope

Highly talented Wimmera pacer Dee Roe (Art Major) looks set to be a key player in tonight’s (Apr 4) $30,000 Barry Bottams Mildura Harness Racing Club Pacing Cup, and the horse’s connections often share a laugh as to how it all come about.

Trainer-driver Aaron Dunn gives his other part-owner Helen Friend all the credit for picking out “Freddy”, aka Dee Roe, at the yearling sales.

“I was having a hard time after a few drinks the previous night and we were wandering around checking out all the horses and Helen just stopped and pointed at Dee Roe and shouted, ‘that’s the one’!” he said.

“He did look okay, and I liked his breeding so I asked Helen would she be having a share with me. She nodded and said yes, she would come in.”

Helen takes up the story, saying Aaron fired in bids that quickly rose to $58,000, and he showed no signs of slowing down!

“I actually think I was pretty relieved when he got Dee Roe for $62,000. I didn’t know how far we were headed! I decided then that we should have a good chat beforehand when we head off to any future sales,” she joked.

“Aaron still reminds me of the look I had on my face, but we’ve had plenty of good laughs about it since!”

Dee Roe has certainly proved to be an outstanding money-spinner with 12 wins and six placings from 30 race starts for prize money of over $125K – and now he’s showing no signs of slowing down!

At Hamilton in January, Dee Roe etched Dunn’s name on a Country Cup for the first time (despite having Group 1 and Group 3 victories to his name) – and the entire will have a big say in the outcome of the Mildura feature.

Helen, who also lives in Horsham, said the pair had known each other for about 25 years.

“He’s worked and worked with his grain cleaning business – I’ve never known anyone to work so hard so it’s great to see him enjoying his horses,” she said.

Helen said she was persuaded to buy a standardbred years ago by a former workmate in Tamara Lane.

“I had an Arabian horse stud, and I was reluctant. Tamara suggested we get a pacer, get a syndicate going and have some fun,” Helen said.

“A pacer named Dreamworks was advertised for sale and having no idea what I was looking at, we ended up buying her.

“Then someone suggested D’Arne Bellman (Michael’s mother) as a good trainer so our syndicate, 10 of us from Grampians Wimmera Mallee water, agreed and we won about seven races.

“Tamara and I ended up buying the others out and now share a foal-on-foal basis. There’s been 11 or 12 foals, and all have been winners with the exception of the last one Wild Radish (Shadow Play) which got injured.

“Time Capsule (Ponder) was a nice horse who won 11 races and in the middle we bred a trotter named Redy To Race (Red River Hanover) (9 wins), who was unpredictable but had so much ability.

“Wild Radish has gone on to give me third generation granddaughters Wild Ideal and Jillbanger Rose, who are both by American Ideal and both trained by Aaron. They’ve won a couple of races each and are still performing very well so the Dreamworks dynasty lives on.

“We intend to keep that line going because we’ve got a strong emotional attachment to it now – we’ve all had so much fun.”

But Helen’s immediate attention is on Dee Roe who, despite his barrier 12 draw, is listed as equal favorite with NSW 3yo Catchafire (Jackson Painting) in the Pacing Cup final.

“I’ll be at Mildura cheering loudly and hopefully he runs a big race.”

Other strong chances are given to Catalpa Rescue for Shane Sanderson, who is attempting to capture his third successive Mildura Pacing Cup feature, and southwest Victorian pacer Young Bluey (Mattie Craven).

Charlton’s Joe Got Rolled (Joey Thompson) will be aiming to repeat the giant-killing effort to win Tuesday night’s second qualifier, and is quoted a $14 chance.

Check the Mildura fields here: 

From Terry Gange for Harnesslink