Having tasted life at the pointy end of Australia’s greatest pacing race, the Inter Dominion, veteran trainer Geoff Webster is keen to get back there.
And Webster thinks he has just the horse to do it in Flaming Flutter, who will step out in tomorrow night’s Group 3 Tooleybuc Sporting Club Swan Hill Pacing Cup.
“(Inter Dominion) is the biggest race and I want to win one,” Webster said. “I’ve been in this game a long time and had very few opportunities. I feel like this is my chance to win it.”
The 40-year veteran of the sport watched Flaming Flutter run second to Beautide in March’s staging of the great race and hopes to go one better in Perth come December.
“Flaming Flutter is well on track for where I want him to go,” Webster said.
“The Inter Dominion is not far away now and his form has been really good. He has been going even better this prep than last. I think he has improved immensely since the (March) Inter Dominion.”
Flaming Flutter has placed in his last nine starts and while that has only produced two wins Webster said “there have been no real disappointments”.
Last start it was stablemate Franco Ledger who swooped home at Melton to win a fast-paced Preux Chevalier Free For All and bump leader Flaming Flutter to third, and the two will do battle again in the first of this season’s Trots Country Cups at Swan Hill.
A 13-horse field will chase the more than $35,000 purse, including second favourite Hunter Cup winner Arden Rooney and resuming Macho Comacho.
Franco Ledger is also Inter Dominion bound and Webster said his “form has been thereabouts but I just know that he’s getting better again”.
“We’ll find out more Saturday night. It is quite a large field and much will depend on how they begin being a standing start,” he said.
“It will be a tough race to win, but both will be in it. You expect challenges. This will be a high quality race. There are half a dozen horses that could win it. As long as they perform as I hope they will we’ll be in it to the end.”
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