By Michael Guerin
If you have a trotter who isn’t quite doing things right here is your early Christmas present: The Master has room at the inn.
Freakish trainer of trotter Paul Nairn was doing what he does best at Ashburton on Thursday, training and driving El Conqueror to win a lower grade trot.
But while Nairn is absolutely still the man with trotters, due to a few unforseen circumstances he has a couple of stalls free, which is rare for him.
“This time last year I had too many horses and couldn’t get enough staff but now I have good staff and things are well set up but less horses,” says Nairn.
The dip in horsepower has nothing to do with demand, more than Nairn only usually trains a small team and rarely says yes to many new owners so they stop asking.
“We have lost a few horses, all for good reasons,” explains Nairn.
“Head Em Up was sold to Australia and has gone to Queensland after his big win at Addington.
“And Confessional was just going through a patch of not racing as well as he can so we have decided to turn him out for a long spell.
“Then we sent Resolve north where she will stay with John Dickie, all going well, until Rowe Cup time.
“So I have less numbers than usual and while I have a few to come back after Christmas, now I think about it, I suppose we could take a few more.”
El Conqueror’s programme next week sums up Nairn’s unusual ways after his last-stride win on Thursday.
“He will go to Westport but he won’t race on the first day,” says Nairn.
“He has this race today so I will let him have the first day off then he can run the second day and at Reefton.”
That doesn’t mean Nairn will be short of firepower in the main trot on Tuesday though as he is taking Tu Tangata to the meeting as well as a maiden named High Noon.
Tu Tangata will undergo one of the great class drops of the year when he lines up in a R51 and faster trot off a 10m handicap after having finished seventh in the Dominion at his previous start.
“He should be suited over there,” says Nairn in typcial understatement.
Other highlights on the Ashburton card included four driving successes for John Dunn, three of them trained by Dunn racing.
And Joseph Gray extending his personal best season when he trained Motor Mouth to win the last for his 9th win of the year, which is two more than last season which was, in turn, one more than the season before.
