By Michael Guerin
CHRISTCHURCH - For most racehorse owners it would have been a knockout punch, but John Hart copped it like a body blow.
After the week from coaching hell, Hart knocked on the door to harness racing heaven yesterday. Nobody answered.
With just 50m to run in yesterday's New Zealand Trotting Cup, favourite Holmes D G, part-owned by Hart, was going to win.
Holmes D G reached the front early as trainer-driver Barry Purdon wanted, shot clear at the top of the straight and for a few moments the Addington sun pierced the dark clouds that followed Hart home from England yesterday.
But no. Homin Hosed wanted to prove that bad things do come in threes.
So he thrust out his big Waikato head and Hart was left to wonder what might have been.
Yet the disappointment that would have shattered most horse owners was mixed with resignation.
"He went a great race and we are very proud of him. He was just beaten by a better horse on the day," Hart said.
They were the words of a man too tired to hunt vainly for excuses. A man who looked as though he had hardly slept for a week. Which is probably not that far from the truth.
But Hart left Addington feeling he had won at least one battle.
The wellwishers and handpumpers outnumbered the openly critical, which is not a bad effort on a racetrack crowded with Cantabrians at various levels of intoxication.
"I have received a lot of support today but there have also been other comments, the sort of comments which you just have to learn to live with," Hart said. "But the positive ones definitely outweighed the negative."
So Hart heads home to two gaping holes in what could have been a uniquely stocked trophy cabinet.
But at least this time he knows it definitely was not his fault the favourite got beaten.
Racing: Despite this Holmes-coming
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