Many people have tried to tell me to let The Reveller go and a few mates keep ribbing me that he hasn’t won, so I thought why not talk to his trainer Matt Dunn to see what his opinion of the horse is to see if I’m on the right track, and then I will assess his form.
“I think he may need to go to a better race so he can be ridden the way he needs to be ridden and have a bit of pace there. He’s a good horse but he needs to get his rating up and get a few more points and then we can go looking for a few fast run 1350m-1400m races possibly at the end of the Brisbane carnival. He’s up to that grade. You can’t rattle off the sectionals like he does and not be a handy horse.” Dunn said
If you go through his form he has had no luck and things haven’t fallen his way, but that is always going to be the case with backmarkers. It is not a case of him ‘turning it up’ because he tries his guts out, he simply needs to be ridden right which has happened twice this prep for a win and a flying third.
This preparation he won his first two runs impressively. He was then ridden upside down and finished 3rd to Skating On Ice which is a good effort. The horse then ran 6th at Eagle Farm in the only run that I was disappointed in. Next start he was ridden very ordinary again and lost all hope on the turn, but rattled late, and on the weekend gone he was simply outstanding on a slow track which is not his preferred surface and I’d be surprised if there was a faster last sectional all day. His overall record stands at 11 starts for 3- wins, 3- seconds and 2- thirds and I doubt many people would be upset with that record if they owned him, so I don’t really know why he cops a bad rap. He will head to a 1300m race at Eagle Farm in a fortnight and I’m sure he will be very hard to beat. Anyway let’s get onto some other stable runners.
Altai Warrior is in on Saturday and Matt has always thought he was a pretty good horse. He feels one of the keys is the jockey and the horse seems to fire for Wiggins who will be on again. He is similar to The Reveller with his get back pattern, but with a clear run at them he can also reel off a good sectional late. He can go on dead tracks but is most effective on top of the ground.
I will get to catch up with Matt soon and when I do I will try to put some pictures up from the picturesque set up with Mt Warning in the background. Great place to watch some track work!
