Racing: Browne the heroine after feature

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Hypnotize for the Great Northern Steeplechase.

That's one thing we might have learned from Saturday's $35,000 Mad Butcher Pakuranga Hunt Cup at Ellerslie.

The other is that when in doubt about what to back in a real stamina test in winter, put the dollars on an Ann Browne horse.

Look at results from recent days.

At Te Aroha on Friday on a testing track when get-to-the-line grit was required, she won the highweight with Greve, who in two career starts had finished ninth and seventh.

Switch to the maiden steeplechase at Ellerslie on Saturday when the ground was so testing even deadset mudders were struggling in the home straight.

Not the Browne-trained Tom's Myth, who raced away under Shelley Houston for the easiest win of the day.

Many of the runners in the Pakuranga Hunt Cup were down to little more than a walk from the second-last fence. One of the favourites, Climbing High, looked certain to win when clear in the run from the last fence, but was run down by the Browne runner Ima Heroine, who produced the most amazing late sprint when others were struggling in the conditions.

The reason for these results comes down to two words: supreme fitness.

When it comes to getting jumpers fit there is hardly a substitute for the hill work that was the backbone of the remarkable results the late Kenny Browne achieved over a 40-year period.

Ann Browne might not train them to quite that safely-throw-rocks-at-them fitness her late husband managed, but the fierce hill track on the Browne Cambridge property gives the horses in the brown with red armbands colours a distinct edge.

If there was a racing knighthood Ann Browne and her husband would have got one.

Rather than keep to herself the one advantage she has over the opposition, Ann Browne welcomes with open arms all others who choose to use her hill course for training.

When part owner and co-trainer Sheryl McGlade won the Waikato Hurdles earlier in the winter - beating the Browne-trained Mount Sinai - she declared she could not have had Karlos fit enough so early in the jumping season without the use of the hill training track.

The legendary status Ann Browne deserves is exemplified by results and by the fact there would not be a more modest trainer in the game. Certainly none among those as good at plying their trade.

You don't ask someone like Ann Browne her age - Kenny Browne would have been 77 this year - but she still rides in training, not so much over the jumps, but on the flat.

And so to the Great Northern in two weeks, a race the Brownes made their own for a period. On Saturday's run Ima Heroine has to be a chance.

"She's got a very big heart," said winning rider Matt Gillies.

"On top of the hill the last time, I thought we might run third then, after jumping the second-last fence, I thought we were some chance to win if she jumped the last well.

"It turned out to be the only mistake she made and it should have cost her the race, but she picked herself up and sprinted. She's very brave."

Ima Heroine is small and light and that may have played in her favour - big and heavy horses were going right into the track and using a lot of energy.

Stablemate Fair King, a heavy horse, was struggling in the closing stages after sharing the pace throughout. Ima Heroine seemed to better skip over the testing track.

Gillies rode Ima Heroine into fifth in last year's Great Northern Steeples. "She's better this time around. When you find a good jumping mare they're better than the males," says the 25-year-old.

Gillies last year moved north to Cambridge from Palmerston North because he found the majority of his rides were coming from Waikato.

"It became too far to drive each time, whereas from Cambridge there is always a car of jockeys going to the races and we pool rides. It's a lot easier."

Opportunities have become greater and Gillies also won the open hurdles on Saturday on Southern Countess.

Hawkes Bay sportsman Aaron Kuru is torn between two loves.

And neither of them are female.

When the 19-year-old amateur rider scored his first win in the saddle aboard D'Goldie at Ellerslie on Saturday he made his life issues just a little more complicated.

Kuru is torn between his love of playing softball and the possibility of becoming a professional jumps jockey.

Kuru works for D'Goldie's trainer John Bary at Hastings.

His only diversion from the stable is playing in the local softball competition, which has led to him being selected for the national junior softball squad and overseas tours representing New Zealand.

He says at the moment his natural bodyweight is 64kg. To be riding professionally he would probably need to drop 4kg and he worries how that might impact on his playing softball.

"I want to keep my body healthy for softball."

Clearly, playing for the senior national team would be a goal.

Saturday was Kuru's second raceday ride after a third on D'Goldie at Wanganui last month.

"I'll ride out this season then see what John thinks is best."

Bary certainly doesn't want to lose Kuru totally to softball. "He's a good boy this, he's got a brain. He took The Hombre to Australia for me."

Kuru rode the perfect race, sitting just off the speed and moving up around the home turn on the stayer, who went ahead and proved too strong.

"I got a bit tired coming to the turn, but the horse was tough enough to get me there."