Former star juvenile pacer Patrickthepiranha will reappear after a seven-month absence when he starts out wide at barrier eight in the $20,000 Allwood Stud Farm Pace at Gloucester Park on Friday night.
His clash with in-form speedster While They Pray and other smart performers Fake News, Our Alfie Romeo, Golden State and Rock Me Over will be one of the highlights on the ten-event program.
Ace trainer-driver Colin Brown said that he was taking things steadily with Patrickthepiranha and was looking forward to a strong showing from the four-year-old.
“He is a horse who used to jar up in his joints, so we made the decision to let Mother Nature to run its course,” he said. “We tipped him out for a good spell. He raced in all the feature events for two and three-year-olds and had a lot of pressure put on him.
“We thought he deserved a chance to go to the paddock and heal up, and Mother Nature is the only way you’re going to achieve that.
“He has been in work for 16 weeks and has had a nice, solid preparation. I’ve lost count of the amount of gallops, and he’s had two serious hoppled runs at the Jandakot track which has an amazing surface at the moment. He’s been working with my nicer horses and has been running good, solid times.
“There is no substitute for race fitness; he won’t be coming out of the gate and I’ll let him find his feet. There are some nice horses drawn inside of him and if he can hit the line and earn some money for the connections, I’d be happy.
“We haven’t earmarked anything for him. There are some nice races coming up and he definitely has to step up another cog.”
There is plenty of gate speed in Friday night’s event and Fake News (barrier one), Golden State (two) and Rock Me Over (three) could be involved in a keen battle for the early lead, with Fake News (Stuart McDonald) favoured to hold up.
While They Pray, a dashing winner at three of his past four starts, is the likely favourite, but reinsman Gary Hall Jnr expects the brilliant four-year-old to be tested from the outside barrier in the field of nine.
“It’s a hard race for While They Pray,” said Hall. “He’s going to have to do all the hard work.”
Apart from Fake News and Patrickthepiranha, strong dangers to While They Pray include Our Alfie Romeo and Rock Me Over.
Our Alfie Romeo, trained by Greg and Skye Bond, impressed at her first appearance for just over four months when she finished a head second to Just Rockon Bye over 2130m last Friday night. She settled down in fifth position in an Indian file affair of six runners before moving to the breeze with 1200m to travel. She took a narrow lead about 90m from the post and was beaten in the final stride.
