Cran Dalgety expects more Kiwi trainers to look at Australian juvenile races as the dominance of Mark Purdon and Natalie Rasmussen in NZ continues to grow.
Dalgety said the chance to “duck for cover” and avoid the might of Purdon and Rasmussen was a driving force behind Millwood Daisy’s appearance at the Bathurst Gold Crown Carnival.
The Art Major filly sat without cover to easily and impressively win the fifth of five Bathurst Gold Tiara heats last Thursday.
Pending Monday night’s barrier draw, Millwood Daisy looks the testing material in Saturday night’s $100,000 final.
“She’s a good filly, but not special … at least not yet,” he said.
“Mark and Nat have a few good fillies and Mark Jones’ Memphis Melody looks very smart, so we ducked for cover and took out filly over to Aussie for a $100,000 race.
“I had a good chat with Luke McCarthy about the fillies in Aussie and asked if he would look after our filly and drive her.
“When he said yes, I thought we should give it a crack.
“She couldn’t get the front, but still won the heat quite well and Luke said she will strip fitter for it.
“I can’t really line her up with the locals, but Luke thinks she’ll be very competitive in the final.
“We could have gone up north for the Young Guns which Mark and Nat got the trifecta in, but we decided to give Bathurst a go instead to try and get some money in the bank.”
Dalgety said Millwood Daisy would return to NZ through Auckland for a string of feature races.
“The other upside of Bathurst was the new track. The all say how good it is compared to the tight old track where the draws were so important,” Dalgety said.
In other stable news, sidelined superstar Christen Me is “about a month away” from the trials.
“He seems well and looks fantastic,” Dalgety said.
“We’re still not sure what it’s been, some viral issue to do with his heart and lungs.
“We’ve tried some naturopath stuff and it seems to be working.”
Dalgety said if Christen Me pleased at the trials then he would consider the Len Smith Mile at Menangle in June before a Queensland winter campaign.
“Smolda did it last year and it worked for him,” he said.
“It’s an option, but we’re not making any plans until we see how he comes back at the trials.”
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