LONGFORD trainer Troy Blacker has longed to win one of the state’s three feature cups and today at Spreyton Park he hopes his stable star Dream Pedlar can get the ball rolling and win the $100,000 Devonport Cup.
Dream Pedlar is in stellar form with a win and a second at his past two Tasmanian starts and he also boasts a victory in the Bendigo Cup (2200m) in Victoria where he campaigned successfully during the spring.
At his most recent outing Dream Pedlar dethroned Conquering as the state’s best galloper by winning the weight-for-age Kevin Sharkie Tasmania Stakes over 1600 metres in Hobart on December 19.
Blacker says his charge is primed to make amends for running second to Pindarri Prince in the 2009 Devonport Cup but this year he will have to carry a massive 61kg, a weight never lugged to victory in the Devonport club’s premier event.
The most weight carried to victory in the race since it had occupied the January timeslot is 57kg lugged Sea Rhythm in 1997.
However, Blacker is upbeat about winning the cup despite Dream Pedlar’s huge impost.
“My horse is in good order he deserves the weight he’s been given and while it is not going to be easy to win the Cup with that weight I reckon he’s the horse to set a modern day weight carrying record,” Blacker said.
“He’s going to have to carry 62kg with the extra kilogram for the jockey’s vest and that’s not easy for any horse, especially over 1800 metres but he’s big and strong and clearly the proven class horse in the field,” he said.
Blacker says Dream Pedlar has matured into a very professional racehorse.
“His biggest assets are his maturity and strength and you only have to look at his past half-dozen runs to see he is every bit the racehorse these days.”
Blacker has a simple race plan mapped out.
“He’ll be ridden as close as possible to the lead because he can’t afford to get back too far with that weight on his back because it would be too big a task to have to come from worse than midfield 400 metres out.”
“He raced on the pace in the Bendigo Cup and in the Gold Nugget at Bendigo and he won both of those races.”
Dream Pedlar has drawn quite wide in barrier 10 but Blacker is not perturbed.
“Gate 10 is not too bad from the 1800m start so I would expect the rider (Michael Guthrie) to bustle him from the gate and find a spot somewhere in the first half-dozen and then get him to settle.”
“But I am mindful that this is a horse race and often the best paid plans go astray so in the end it could all boil down to luck.”
“Dream Pedlar is a big-striding horse and will need some clear running from the 600m and if everything falls into place I expect him to be the one looming large when they hit the crossing in the home straight the second time around.” he said.
The Leon Wells-trained Western Wager looms as the logical main danger to Dream Pedlar.
Western Wager comes off a luckless fifth in the Newmarket Handicap (1200m) and a last-start win in the Golden Mile (1660m) on his home track at Devonport and in between those runs he was a game fourth in a weight-for-age race over 1400m in Launceston won by Conquering and in which Dream Pedlar finished second.
Peter Staples’ Devonport Cup selections:
1 – Dream Pedlar.
2 – Western Wager.
3 – Veloce Cavallo
4 – Speedy Sky.