Punters Info<\/a><\/p>\nBy Dave Di Somma, Harness News Desk\u00a0<\/p>\n
Warwick Roberts is hopeful he has a Rising Star on his hands.<\/p>\n
Rakero Maximus, who he trains and co-owns, produced a top effort fresh up at Addington on Sunday, winning the Betavet Thanks Clients and Industry Mobile Pace by nearly two lengths.<\/p>\n
It was Rakero Maximus’ first outing since January.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It was a great run considering he is only half ready – he’s carrying about 25 kilos extra,” says Roberts. \u00a0<\/p>\n
So is there more to come?<\/p>\n
“Hell yes!”<\/p>\n
It’s the Downbytheseaside three-year-old gelding’s second win in seven starts – the first came on debut when he won a 2YO race at Addington by nearly six lengths last May.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now Roberts is eyeing up the first of The Rising Star heats at Addington this Friday.<\/p>\n
The series is for up to two-win 3YO male pacers, with $15,000 heats this week and on August 14. The first four home in each is guaranteed a place in the $30,000 final on August 21.<\/p>\n
“We’ll see how he performs but there should be a lot of improvement in him,” says Roberts.<\/p>\n
Rakero Maximus will line up against what looks to be a very competitive field on Friday that includes the unbeaten Partytime and last start winners Nikolai Ray and St Paddy. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Longer-term Roberts is hoping he has a horse that can tackle the 3YO Classics in the spring.<\/p>\n
“His track work tells me he’s good enough to be in a Derby.”<\/p>\n
Roberts is back training in 2026 after a long absence as he recovered from an incident at a Takaka dairy farm around 20 years ago. He was hit in the head by an irrigator. So serious was the injury that he says “for about 10 years I cannot remember anything”.<\/p>\n
As his health improved he got back into the sport including a three year plus stint working for Ronnie Dawe and Tom Bamford.<\/p>\n
He still helps out at the stables as well as training his own small team based at Dawe’s Rangiora stables. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Rakero Maximus, who is raced by Dawe and Warwick and his wife Nicola Roberts, is his second winner this year, following on from his four-year-old trotter Sheep at Addington in June.<\/p>\n
That win was especially emotionally for the Roberts’ family. It was his first starter in more than 30 years and his first winner since Ceddie in 1992.<\/p>\n
Sheep is likely to head to a junior drivers race at Ashburton in early August.<\/p>\n
After a long time away from the sport Roberts is certainly making his mark – with high hopes there are more winners to come. \u00a0<\/p>\n
To see the field for Friday’s The Rising Star heat click here<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"28 July 2026 , Punters Info By Dave Di Somma, Harness News Desk\u00a0 Warwick Roberts is hopeful he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-548221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548221","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=548221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}