30 October 2017 | Chris Barsby
The Brisbane summer carnival is just around the corner.
And the southern stables are well aware about what’s on offer during the month of December at Albion Park.
Features include the Garrard’s Australasian Young Drivers Championship, the $60,000 Egmont Park Stud Queensland Cup, the $40,000 Egmont Park Stud Darrell Alexander Memorial Trot and the $30,000 Group 3 AQWA Constructions Be Good Johnny Sprint among others.
The leading combination of Robbie Morris and Kerryann Turner are keen to return.
The Menangle based couple enjoyed solid success last season through the deeds of now North American based pacer Iam Mr Brightside and are keen to return north again.
Iam Mr Brightside won both the Be Good Johnny Sprint and the Christmas Cup.
“We’re keen to be part of the summer carnival again and we have a number of types that we’re looking at bringing up, a mixture of both pacers and trotters. I’d say we could have anywhere between 8 to 10 horses coming up at this stage.” Morris said.
While exact numbers are yet to be confirmed, some of the likely types headed this way include Condagen, Celestial Arden, Iam Serengeti and Mark Of Integrity among others.
At this stage, no trotters have been confirmed but Morris is keen to be involved again with the DJA series.
“We’ll definitely have a trotter or two for the series but we haven’t confirmed anything just yet, we bought Visualise last year and he performed well during the heats before missing out in the final. We know what we’re looking for as far as that series is concerned.
“The open class features will certainly have interest from our stable, Condagen is definitely coming up and he’s racing in such in great form currently and just needs some luck going his way while others are being looked at.
“And we’ll have a number of pacers for the weekly Rising Stars and Pot of Gold series, we’ve got some really nice emerging types that will be suited to those races and the prizemoney is very good. We’re just getting sorted for with numbers and then we’ll confirm how many boxes we’ll need.”
The Morris/Turner stable is one of a number of southern trainers that have flagged interest in the Brisbane summer carnival.
And the added bonus this year is the staging of the Australasian Young Drivers Championship, being held at both Albion Park and Redcliffe.
The 2017 Australasian Young Drivers Championships Representatives are;
Narissa McMullen (Queensland)
Todd McCarthy (New South Wales – defending champion)
Chris Geary (New South Wales)
Michael Grantham (Western Australia)
Matt Howlett (Tasmania)
Jayden Brewin (South Australia)
Jason Lee (Victoria)
Sheree Tomlinson (New Zealand)
Dylan Ferguson (New Zealand)
Kimberly Butt (New Zealand)
The series starts on December 13 before ending on December 16.
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