By Adam Hamilton
Two classy former Kiwi pacers will be the backbone Team Bond’s Melbourne Inter Dominion assault.
Greg Bond said he and wife, Skye, had mapped-out plans for the emerging Vampiro and established open-class player Galactic Star to tackle the series.
Vampiro continued his rise through the ranks with a victory in last Friday night’s Group 2 James Brennan Memorial at Gloucester Park, while Galactic Star resumes from a let-up at Pinjarra today (Monday).
“Unless something changes, they’ll be going across,” Bond said. “The worry was getting a flight back to Perth after the series, but we’ve put plans in place to float them back because we’ve got the big races here in January.
“Flights can be hard to get from Melbourne to Perth that close to Christmas. We’ll fly them if we can, but the transporter is in place to take them home back home on the Sunday or Monday after the final (December 15).
“We need them back home quickly to have time for a little freshen-up, then have them spot on for the Fremantle and WA Cups.”
Bond said the lure of the Inter Dominion’s history and prestige carried plenty of weight.
“The stakemoney is well down on last year and the heats aren’t worth a lot at $30,000 when you think our Gloucester Park free-for-alls at $25,000, but it is still the Inter Dominion,” he said.
“We’re taking two horses across who will need luck and are opportunists rather than being able to dominate their races, but we think will be competitive with the right luck.
“Galactic Star went across (to Melton) and ran fifth in the Victoria Cup last year and he finished fifth in last year’s Inter Dominion final as well.”
Galactic Star also won a heat of last year’s Perth Inter Dominion at Bunbury.
“Vampiro has just kept getting better for us. He hasn’t finished further back than fifth in his 30 starts for us and won 15 of them. Even that fifth was in the Golden Nugget when he had to face the breeze for part of the race,” Bond said.
In other stable news, Bond said buzz Kiwi import and early Golden Nugget favourite Ana Malak was close to racing.
He hasn’t raced since a huge Addington win for then trainer Ken Barron and driver Blair Orange on August 17.
“We found a quarter crack so he’s taken more time to get to the races than we expected, but he’s very fit now and we’ve still gone some time up our sleeve for the big 4YO races,” Bond said.
“He looks and give you the feel or a really nice horse at home, but we’re keen to see him at the races.”
Although Team Bond’s down on numbers, the quality is strong.
“We’ve had up to 50 in work and about 40 is the right, but we’re only at around 25 now. That said, we’ve got some nice horse like Saving Grace, who ran a 55.8sec half at Northam to win easily last night (Saturday), Mitch Maguire is very fast and making his way through the grades,” Bond said.
“Even Mighty Conqueror, who runs at Pinjarra tomorrow (Monday) shows us plenty at home and could be a Nugget horse as well.”
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