By MIKE DILLON
He may have to do it on natural ability, but Willie Capone can make it back to winning form at Hastings tomorrow.
The most luckless horse of 1999-2000 will be having his first start for seven months and trainer Allan Sharrock is as confident as he can be without the benefit of having given the speedster a barrier trial.
Willie Capone has raced only once since being injured when he spread himself badly at the start of his attempt to make it four straight wins at Trentham in late January.
He was clearly not himself when he lined up against what eventually proved to be New Zealand's smartest juvenile, Spring Rain, in the $500,000 Mercedes Classique at Te Rapa two weeks later.
If there was a moral victory all season which did not pay a winning dividend, it was his three quarters of a length second to Spring Rain.
A three-month spell has worked wonders, but Sharrock will love to get tomorrow's race out of the way.
"When something goes wrong with a horse like Willie Capone, you are always looking for a negative when they come back into work."
There has been no sign of one and Sharrock's main worry is not having been able to barrier trial the horse.
"He's had three jumpouts and won the last two, the most recent by 10 lengths.
"The only problem is they run one second faster in trials than they do in jumpouts, so I would have preferred a trial, but in the last one he ran the last 800m n 49.4 and the 600 in 36.2 and they were a fair way out from the rail on the course proper, so it was a good gallop."
A good cross reference for Sharrock was when Willie Capone beat underrated open class mare Victoire by four lengths in the first of his two jumpout wins.
"It's a bit colder in winter in Taranaki and it generally takes longer for our horses to lose their winter coats. Willie is a bit wooly around the girth area, although his coat overall is very good."
Willie Capone was a compact speed machine as a juvenile and Sharrock says look for a different physical type now.
And Sharrock has deliberately bled the explosive speed off the horse.
"He's got to run 1600m this time in so we've been making him take a trail in his jumpouts and he's copped it well.
"His races last season were all speed races and that was fair enough to be showing the dash he displayed, but 3-year-old racing is different."
Willie Capone will be aimed at the Hawkes Bay Guineas with the Caulfield Guineas a possibility if his form is up to expectation.
"If he isn't quite where we want him to be we don't have to panic. There is big money to be won at home. He can miss Melbourne and be aimed at the Bayer Classic."
Racing: Capone set to get back on track
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