By Michael Guerin
John Dunn has a warning for punters expecting more premiership heroics from the country’s top stable this year.
Because while the Robert and Jenna Dunn stable have a big hand in the feature race at Blenheim on Friday, stable No.1 driver John says their start to the new year could be a lot quieter than some punters expect.
“Even though we just won the premiership the last few months we have had plenty of bad luck,” he told HRNZ.
“We have had some horses get injured like Charlie Brown, who has got a knee issue and some of the good trotters have needed a break for niggly problems.
“Sundees Sister is just coming back in and she could be a good horse for us but we won’t be having a big booming start to the year.”
The Dunn stable also has horses who are victims of their own earlier success, evidenced by the feature race today, the $15,000 Dennis Denuto Marlborough Cup Prelude.
The stable have three starters but Whos Delight and Bryce’s Meddle are on 30m handicaps over the 2400m while course specialist Double Time is off 20m.
“It is making it really hard these handicaps,” says Dunn.
“These days when even lower grade horses step and run so fast when you are off 20m it can be impossible to win and we have two horses off 30m here, which is really, really hard to overcome.
“We all know they can still win if they have luck and maybe the leaders go slower but sometimes in these races it actually becomes impossible.
“And that makes it really hard on the horses as you don’t want them doing that every week.”
While Double Time won this race and the Cup two days later at this meeting last year, Dunn says pressed for the stable’s best chance it would still probably be Whos Delight.
“He was okay the other day at Nelson but we all know he is a pretty good horse at his best.
“But as I said, the way the handicaps are if they step and run off the front line he could be chasing all the way as it is only 2400m.”
There is good depth to the race, with a case to be made for almost any of the 10 starters.
The meeting sees a good mixture of horses extending their grass track campaigns from The Coast three weeks ago through to more Canterbury type horses, a prime example being the main trot, the $15,000 Seddon Shield Series Trot.
Again it is 2400m so the chances of backmarkers like Masterley and Eurokash will depend on the tactics of those on the front line and how hard they want to run.
Two horses who could start the day better for the Dunns early on are Volstone, a trotter with plenty to learn but who should be better for recent experince in race 1.
And Copenhagen Girl in Race 2 shouldn’t be a maiden for long but does cop a second line draw over 1850m mobile.