Racing: Big barrier to making this dream come true

Robert Mitchell remembers these feelings.

The first one is hard enough. That is the feeling you get when everybody believes you can't win the biggest race of your life but they are all too scared to admit it to you.

The second feeling is worse. That is the feeling you get deep inside when you start to think they might all be right.

Mitchell is the man behind Just An Excuse, who in most eras would be the best pacer of his generation.

The winner of two New Zealand Cups, a NZ Free-For-All, a Taylor Mile, Messenger Pace, the owner of the fastest official last 400m paced in New Zealand.

That is Just An Excuse, a pacing giant who has spent the last two weeks in the shadow of the much smaller Elsu.

Mitchell reads the papers, watches the tapes, knows a great horse when he sees one.

So he knows beating Elsu in tomorrow night's $750,000 Interdominion pacing final will not be easy. Maybe impossible.

But Mitchell has one saving grace as he looks forward to tomorrow night. He can also look back.

When Just An Excuse returned to Addington on November 9 last year he was given little chance of defending his New Zealand Cup title.

He had been checked out of his previous start, the Ashburton Stakes, in which Elsu smashed the national record winning under a hold.

Elsu started a hot favourite in the cup with Just An Excuse around $7, roughly what he will be paying tomorrow night.

What looked unlikely before the race should have become impossible when Elsu strode effortlessly to the lead at the 2400m point before unleashing the fastest final 1600m of a staying race anywhere in the world.

But Just An Excuse beat him. Fair and square. On that afternoon, Just An Excuse was clearly better than Elsu.

It was the most stopwatch-defying, incomprehensible performance on a New Zealand racetrack in a decade.

Mitchell enjoyed it. A lot.

"To win like that, to beat a champion when everybody said we couldn't, that just made it better," he said at the time.

Now Robert Mitchell, the trainer who was dragged out of semi-retirement three years by a giant unraced gelding with a three-barrelled name, faces the seemingly impossible again.

"It does have its benefits, you know," he offers.

"Going into our first New Zealand Cup I was as nervous as anything because the pressure is so intense.

"But last November it was different, all the pressure was on Elsu.

"That is a bit how it has been these week. My phone hasn't been ringing much."

Not that Just An Excuse has done anything wrong during this series.

He won easily on the first night, was driven cold for third in an unsuitable sprint on the second night and worked hard before showing courage when third again last Friday.

He has been the second-best pacer in the series and is, after all, the horse who has beaten Elsu four times.

But Mitchell is playing that down, staying as relaxed as the Raglan beach where Just An Excuse has been ridden, not driven, this week.

"I know how good he is and I know he can win it.

"But I also have huge admiration for Elsu and there are a lot of other great horses there too.

"So a lot will depend on the tactics and luck in the running."

Mitchell admits the Interdominion format does not suit Just An Excuse, who tries so hard he can flatten himself.

"But he has come through it better than I thought he would. He is ready."

Yet he somewhat grudgingly admits that Just An Excuse is a more potent weapon around the vast expanses of Addington.

"But his record at Alexandra Park is good too," he adds quickly.

The difference between Just An Excuse and Elsu is smaller than their fixed odds prices, or public perception, would suggest.

But at Alexandra Park Elsu seems more at home, at Addington that is reversed.

And Mitchell realises Elsu may simply be a better horse than he was on that unbelievable November 9.

Yet, more than any other trainer in tomorrow night's final, he knows even impossible dreams can come true.

And if they don't?

"Hey, I have loved every minute of this. An Interdominion, on our home track ... it has been awesome just to be part of it.

"I'd be happy to run second or third."

Which is exactly what he was thinking with a lap to go in the New Zealand Cup.

Excuse me

* Just An Excuse is the second favourite for tomorrow night's $750,000 Interdominion Pacing Final.

* His trainer Robert Mitchell knows he faces a huge task in beating Elsu.

* Just An Excuse has already done that at the highest level, downing him twice in the New Zealand Cup.

* Mitchell says Just An Excuse has handled the series format better than expected.