By Joshua Smith, Harness News Desk
Ashburton trainer Brent White is looking forward to kicking-off One Apollo’s season in the Airpark Canterbury Handicap Trot (2600m) at Addington Raceway on Friday night.
The Group Three winner has finished runner-up in two recent trials and White believes he is in for an exciting spring.
“He has had a couple of nice hit-outs at the trials and I was more than happy with him last week,” White said.
“He didn’t need to go as fast as we did, but we were only following them around. He hit the line nicely, but he still has a lot of improvement in him.”
The five-year-old son of One Over Da Moon will start from the back mark of 30m and White said he will need to step away cleanly in order to feature on Friday night.
“All of these trotters run time and if they do that up front that will make it hard for him off that handicap,” he said.
“Gerard (O’Reilly, driver) has jumped back in the cart this week because Ricky (May) got a suspension. Hopefully he goes well first-up.”
One Apollo was in fine form earlier this year, winning four races last season, culminating with a half-length victory over Winterfell in the Gr.3 4YO & 5YO Trotting Championship (2600m) at Addington Raceway in March.
“He was flying and it was the one year you would have liked the Jewels to have been on and he would have been a chance,” White said. “But there are more serious things going on in the world.
“I was rapt with his end of season form. As long as we can get back to running those sort of times I will be more than happy.”
White is hoping to target a couple of feature trot races this spring and believes his seven-win trotter is up to adding a third stakes victory to his tally.
“We are hoping that he will be good enough to go around in all of the good trotting races and we will just keep our feet on the ground and take it one step at a time,” he said.
“He has probably come back a bit later than the faster class horses, but we have taken our time with him. He seems good and I think he will be more than competitive.”
While White is excited about the prospects of One Apollo heading into spring, he said he may have unearthed another promising trotter by his sire.
“I have got another three-year-old trotter by One Over Da Moon that I like called Samanthas Moon,” he said. “She is just going to take a bit of time but she is doing a nice job and might be seen around Christmas time.”