Finding talented galloper Zac Black’s happy place has given Riverton trainer Aimee Tyler confidence the enigmatic five-year-old can secure back-to-back wins for the first time in his career.
Tyler and her father Kelvin will produce five-year-old Dalghar gelding Zac Black in the Dave Hegarty & Ross Malcom @ Harcourts/Trenz Homes 1400 on their home track on Sunday, hopeful he can replicate his last-start triumph at Gore.
The Tylers have had to get inside Zac Black’s head to get him to the peak of his form, chiefly through a varied training regime, implemented through stable apprentice Savish Khetoo, his regular trackwork partner.
“Zac is a lovely horse and when he’s working well, he shows us that he’s capable of really going places,” Aimee Tyler said.
“He can be a bit tricky at home sometimes but we think we’re getting on top of that. That win at Gore was him at his best. We’d changed a few things with his training and had a chiropractor to him to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be.
“He’s been doing a lot more figure-eight work and dressage and trotting and has more quiet days. He doesn’t do much as much cardio work now. We don’t gallop him as much as other horses.
“He goes into the middle of the track and does figure eights and trotting and we just play around with him. He enjoys being quite fresh and that’s given us a blueprint to proceed from here on.”
Zac Black’s win at Gore was his fifth from 28 starts and came at the expense of talented galloper Humbucker, who has since franked the form with a clinical win in Wednesday’s Listed Timaru Cup (1600m).
“When you know he’s right, you know how good he can be. When he’s not right and he’s being a bit of a monkey at home, it has made us all the more determined to get it right and bring him back to his best,” Tyler said.
“Now we’ve got him working properly. We knew it was in there but we’ve just had to work a bit harder with him to bring it out. Now that we’ve found his happy place, we’ve just carried on along the same lines.
“He’s come through that win really well and we still believe he’s at his best. He’s bright and cheerful like he was before Gore. We’re hopeful he can give it another good shot and get the same result.”
While Tyler was pleased to see Zac Black lower Humbucker’s colours at Gore, she was just as pleased for Humbucker’s connections for their Timaru Cup success.
“He’s a lovely horse too with a great bunch of owners and it was great they could accomplish that,” she said.
However, the Tylers’ focus won’t just be on Zac Black as they will also saddle Our Boy Ritchie and So Much Mour in the Riverton feature.
“They’re both really well too,” she said. “Our Boy Ritchie has had one start back from a long time off so he’s still on the way back up but he’s really bright. So Much Mour is another that likes to be fresh. He’s quite a flat-footed boy but when he’s fresh and well, he can be dangerous too.”
The Tylers will field a strong contingent for the Riverton New Year’s Day meeting with 13 runners across the day, with Aimee tipping another bold run from Arceus, who finished third at Gore at his first start for the stable.
“He’s a lovely horse. Gore panned out a bit differently than he’d been training at home but it would be nice to get that one for Terry LInes, who races him,” she said.
“We’ve got a nice team in overall. We don’t get a chance to race at home very often. We love racing here. It’s a big, roomy track, long straight and fair for everybody.
“Our horses train here so hopefully we get a slight advantage there. It’s nice to get the first starters and young ones stepping out at home before they venture further. We enjoy racing at home.”
