But there are still winners to be found and Cambridge trainer Pike could produce a couple of them.<\/p>\n
He starts the twilight meeting at 4.18pm with maiden 4-year-old Del Inquent (Race 1, No 5) taking on predominantly race winners over 2100m \u2013 but that doesn\u2019t bother Pike.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have found that in these type of races, a good maiden can beat the race winners because of the weight relief,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a good stayer in the making and while he has been a slow burn, he is starting to get there now.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has some tactical speed and can stay handy from the inside so he will be hard to beat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pike also provides the favourite in Race 2 with Arthur (No 2) coming out of a strong maiden race last time, where he finished third behind That\u2019s Gold, who went on to win the Bonecrusher Stakes at Pukekohe last Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a little bit like the horse in the first in that he is still developing, but it is not impossible he could be a Derby contender if he keeps improving,\u201d Pike said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis looks a good race for him and I think he can win.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a nice filly in that race too in Irish Fluke, who I am certain will win races, but she might need a race or two more before she really hits her stride.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pike has the handy Pink Gin, an omen tip for some, in the last race which is also a qualifier for the rich Stella Artois Final on Boxing Day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a nice enough field so won\u2019t be an easy race to win but she has been racing well and gets a claim with Sam [McNab] on so is an each-way chance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like many northern trainers, Pike is in for a busy weekend, with tonight\u2019s meeting followed by Tauranga tomorrow and then the huge Waikato Cup meeting on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cSaturday should be great racing and I was thinking Cannon Hill would be our best chance,\u201d Pike said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the J Swap Sprint he is in looks a hot, hot race.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe might have just hit the front too soon in the TAB Mile at Riccarton but has come through that trip well.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis bigger aim is the Rich Hill Mile at Ellerslie on New Year\u2019s Day but we think he can race well on Saturday, but it is a good field with a lot of winning chances.<\/p>\n
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald\u2019s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world\u2019s biggest horse racing carnivals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But there are still winners to be found and Cambridge trainer Pike could produce a couple of them.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[806,5195,124,8500,14568,111,139,69,4762,49648,3512,6443,213,11555,113887,5911,11554,8489,70783],"class_list":{"0":"post-178056","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-as","9":"tag-be","10":"tag-could","11":"tag-ellerslie","12":"tag-horse","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-newzealand","15":"tag-nz","16":"tag-party","17":"tag-pike","18":"tag-racing","19":"tag-returns","20":"tag-sports","21":"tag-started","22":"tag-starter","23":"tag-tonight","24":"tag-tony","25":"tag-trainer","26":"tag-twilight"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}