The fruits of Joe Pace\u2019s latest New Zealand shopping spree will be on show at Melton on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
The Harkness-based horseman, who only turned full-time training nine years ago, has enjoyed plenty of success with Kiwi imports like Supreme Dominator, Rock N Roll Chapel, along with current pair Harry Stamper and Justalittlesip.<\/p>\n
Pace added three more youngsters from the Auckland and Christchurch yearling sales last year and two of them \u2013 the exciting Vivid Dream and unraced Bettor Punter \u2013 tackle the feature race, the Sapling Stakes, at Melton on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
Judging by Vivid Dream\u2019s breathtaking last-to-first debut win at Geelong last Friday, he will be one of the key players.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s the most advanced, natural two-year-old of the three we bought for sure,\u201d Pace said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t get me wrong, it\u2019s taken time and patience to get him here, but he\u2019s pretty much a complete package now.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat speed you saw at Geelong that excited everyone has always been there, but we\u2019ve spent lots of time getting him to relax and use it when we want him to, not when he wants to.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why he\u2019s only now got to the races so late in the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve held back his speed and babied him, but it\u2019s all come together and Adrian (Pace\u2019s son and driver) said he switched on and off well when he wanted him to at Geelong, which was the most pleasing part.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdrian is a patient driver and suits him the horse at this early stage of his career. He gave a bit of a heart attack at Geelong when he wanted so long (to make his run), but Adrian said he was bolting and always had them covered.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a step-up against a few nice ones, including Letsstartinheaven and Kitzbuhel Delight, this time, but he\u2019s got the talent to go with them and it\u2019s really just another stepping stone for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019ll have this run and then four to six weeks out and we\u2019ll get him ready for the NSW Derby at Menangle early next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
In contrast, Pace said Bettor Punter, a half-brother to former star pacer Ohoka Punter (27 wins and almost $1.2 million in prize money), will need the experience despite drawing the pole.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe won a Melton trial and then went well when second in a Geelong trial when he did a couple of things wrong at Geelong on Monday night,\u201d Pace said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019ll make a lovely horse, but still green and a work in progress. These early races are educational for him, but I think he\u2019ll be in the better races come mid to late next year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Pace thinks similarly of his\u00a0third purchase, a son of megastar sire Captaintreacherous.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got a motor, but he\u2019s huge \u2026 about 16.5 hands,\u201d he said. \u201cHe wanted to trot early, but I wasn\u2019t having that so we\u2019ve kept working on him slowly and steadily.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s from the family of star horses like Franco Hattrick and France Enforce and Barry Purdon (champion Kiwi trainer) said the breed don\u2019t come together until they\u2019re three, so we\u2019ll give him all the time he needs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pace\u2019s stable star, classy trotter Harry Stamper, showed he was ready for a racetrack return with a strong Geelong trial on Monday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe gave him a break after (the) Brisbane (Inter Dominion) because his campaign derailed with foot problems,\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019s back on target now and there\u2019s a standing-start handicap race for him at Melton soon (September 27) before we look at the big races again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Picture: Courtesy Ian Woolridge<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fruits of Joe Pace\u2019s latest New Zealand shopping spree will be on show at Melton on Saturday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3004,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-142431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}