All dressed up and nowhere to go, that was the issue that faced trainers Brooke Hammond and Kate MacLeod who sent one horse each from their stable to Victorian trainer Kate Hargreaves.
Hammond sent over handy five-year-old gelding Moonlite Bay who has won three of his 14 starts and MacLeod sent over Shadow Ross who was a Devonport winner five-starts ago and is the winner of six races.
Both horses line up in the fifth race at Bendigo in central Victoria tonight.
Hargreaves trialled both horses at Maryborough on Sunday morning where Moonlite Bay scored a neck victory over open class trotter Sundons Courage who has won over $235,000 in prizemoney.
Moonlite Bay was driven in the trial by Hargreaves’ life partner Alex Ashwood who positioned the gelding outside of the leader for the final 900 metres of the trial.
Hargreaves took the drive on Shadow Ross in that trial where he finished in third spot, the gelded son of Shadow Play was restrained from his wide draw before following his stablemate all of the way.
The mile rate for the 2190-metre trial was 2m 1.9s with the last half mile recorded in 56.0s.
Moonlite Bay, who is first-up since finishing second to Cardinal Ringo at Carrick on 29 December has been well found with Ladbrokes for tonight’s event being backed in from $6.00 into $4.20 at the time of writing while Shadow Ross has been steady at an $18 quote.
Hargreaves had a couple of horses spelling at Hammonds property in northern Tasmania after the Tasmanian Autumn Carnival, and when the transport truck came to pick them up, Hammond elected to send the pacer across Bass Strait while racing is on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tonight’s race is scheduled to start at 20:21.
Watch the replay of Moonlite Bay running second at his last Tasmanian start.