UNDERRATED five-year-old pacer Denvers Boy notched his second win for the month when he led all the way to take out the David Sale Pace over 2090 metres at Tattersall’s Park in Hobart on Sunday night.
With Scott Ford in the sulky, Denvers Boy began brilliantly from the outside gate to lead and he was able to stave off all challengers in the home straight.
The Rod Plunkett-trained five-year-old had struggled to win a race, having 22 starts before breaking his maiden status four starts back.
After winning in Launceston on August 8 he finished fourth in Hobart a week later and followed up with a gallant second in Launceston, coming from last at the 600m to be beaten less than six metres.
Plunkett said the gelding had been plagued by niggling injuries with the worst being a tendon when in the care of talented trainer Dick Eaves.
“When he did a tendon he was tipped out for quite a while, in fact he didn’t race for almost two years,” Plunkett said.
“When he came back into work my son Robert trained him and he was coming along nicely but he still wasn’t doing everything that he should have been doing so we changed his training regime,” he said.
Denvers Boy is owned and raced by Donna Plunkett and her sons Ben and Matthew Plunkett.
The gelding was bred by Donna’s late husband Leigh Plunkett who bred the horse at his Berriedale Stud. Leigh Plunkett was a big fan of country singer John Denver.
Denvers Boy had been doing everything right on the training track but wasn’t mirroring that form in his races so the trainer opted to change his training regime.
“I made a couple of minor gear changes but the main change was switching him to beach training which had an almost immediate impact on his attitude,” the trainer said.
Plunkett only regained his trainer’s licence six weeks ago.
“My son (Robert) got a really good job offer so I decided to get my trainer’s licence back,” he said.