News Article
Rising Trotter In Pursuit Of Stardom
27 November 2009
In Pursuit will be tough to beat in the SEW-Eurodrive Australian Trotting Grand Prix at Tabcorp Park on December 4
The 2009 SEW-Eurodrive Australian Trotting Grand Prix – the Victoria Cup carnival’s night one highlight – is shaping as a classic battle between age and youth, experience and potential, the past and the future.
Representing the ‘old guard’ are veteran squaregaiters Sundons Gift – looking for a threepeat in this race after back-to-back victories in 2007/2008 – Acacia Ridge – the one-time spruik horse of Victorian trotting, entering his second campaign back from injury for another shot at glory – and Viva La Fever – last season’s Sky Channel Dullard Cup Champion also returning from significant injury in a bid to reassert himself as a genuine force.
Aged eight, eight and nine years of age respectively this trinity of stars have dominated Australian trotting for almost two-and-a-half years, but for everything there is a season, and to suggest that their mantle is under siege is to fatally understate the threat posed by the sport’s young and emerging stars.
Chris Lang’s boom horse Skyvalley – a four year old with both the credentials and the potential to be anything – has in word, if not deed, already taken the mantle as Australia’s finest squaregaiter, but it is another emerging star, Michael Marais’ ever-improving son of Monarchy, In Pursuit, that threatens to spoil the party and announce himself a the new poster child of Australian trotting.
“You will see him at his best over the next month,” Marais, A former Zimbabwean conditioner who works exclusively with trotters said, with reference to In Pursuit’s rapid improvement heading into the Grand Prix and subsequent Aldebaran Park Stud Bill Collins Sprint a week later.
“He’s really started flying in the last thirty days, he’s coming on in leaps and bounds.
“The Grand Prix will suit this horse (In Pursuit) better than the mile race but either way we’re going to see some pretty exciting racing over the next few weeks, that’s for sure.”
That exciting racing – in the forthright view of Marais – will see a two-horse war develop between In Pursuit – coming off two ultra-impressive victories at Tabcorp Park in recent weeks – and the only horse to consistently dominate him during this campaign, fellow young gun Skyvalley – to the exclusion of the sport’s established stars, accolades and all.
“I think you can forget about Sundons Gift and the other ones just coming back to racing” Marais declared in typically ebullient fashion.
“They would have to get started right now, probably yesterday.
“No, as I see it Skyvalley is the only horse on level terms that would beat him (In Pursuit), and the way we beat Skyvalley is if that horse sits outside us and looks us in the eye.
“Then we can outstay him.”
Right or wrong, Marais’ heady predictions - and the pride they will prick approaching a fortnight of trotting features that will settle arguments and make reputations - can only lift the feeling of expectation heading into the SEW-Eurodrive Austrlasian Trotting Grand Prix at Tabcorp Park on December 4.
From the barrier draw, to be conducted on December 1, to the race itself three days later, the intrigue will continue to build as the squaregaiters steal the headlines from their pacing contemporaries and the new unofficial champion of Australian trotting is crowned.
Night one of the Victoria Cup carnival features the Group three Popular Alm free-for-all, the VSB & SA Tailamade Lombo and the MHRC Cup to support the Australian Trotting Grand Prix and precedes night two, and the running of the 35th Victoria Cup for Australasia’s best pacers on December 11.
