Monday 1st June 2015
Pheasants Nest trainer Darren Hancock believes his Gr. 3 winning trotter On Thunder Road is ready to tackle some of the country’s best. Hancock was full of praise for the son of Bettors Delight after his victory in Saturday night’s Bulli Trotters Cup and insists he is only going to get better after starting his career as a pacer.
“It was good to win that race at Menangle on the weekend, On Thunder Road is just getting better and better, I definitely wouldn’t be frightened to put him against the good trotters,” said Hancock.
“He won a race at Menangle pacing, I gave him about five runs as a pacer and he started favourite most of the time and ran some reasonable races without setting the world on fire.”
On Thunder Road’s half brother Kiwi Ideal competed against leading pacers like Adore Me, Franco Nelson, The Gold Ace and Sir Lincoln in New Zealand but Hancock decided to try something different with the gelding.
“He is really well bred being a half brother to Kiwi Ideal so I didn’t really think about trying him as a trotter but I don’t put the hopples on my horses at home much they mostly canter and jog.
“One day I worked him with another couple of horses, he went with them trotting the whole way around my track and he didn’t want to break so I thought I’d try him as a trotter.”
Hancock has driven some talented trotters in his career and thinks the twelve time winner has what it takes to race at the top level.
“I’ve sat behind some nice trotters but this bloke is so smooth, you wouldn’t get a nicer horse to drive but he is still learning at this stage of his career.
“He’s started to step away from the stand now, at first he wanted to step away pacing, every time he goes out on the track he is getting better.”
The five year old has only missed a place once in his last ten starts and on that occasion he finished fourth in a Gr. 1 event on Inter Dominion day.
“There are some good races for him next year, I wouldn’t be afraid to travel with him and he is good from the mobile as he showed at Menangle last week when he led and went 1:56.3.
“Week to week racing doesn’t hurt him, he pulls up great, he is a good doing horse and it is going to be interesting to see what we will do with him now.”
Harness Racing NSW (HRNSW) is the controlling body for harness racing in New South Wales with responsibility for commercial and regulatory management of the industry including 31 racing clubs across the State. HRNSW is headed by an industry-appointed Board of Directors and is independent of Government.