Racing: Experience may count against trio

Bruce Wallace can't remember the last horse he had that broke 36 seconds for the last 600m of training on his private dirt track at Takanini.

Which is why he fancies the chances of Master Regent in tomorrow's $35,000 Fairview Ford Slipper at Matamata.

"He came home in 35.05 and did it well," said Wallace.

Master Regent finished a solid fourth, 2 3/4 lengths away, behind Wahid in the $500,000 NZ Bloodstock Classique at Te Rapa two weeks ago.

What he faces tomorrow is a raft of royally bred emerging talents like Abbey Drive (Zabeel-Grace And Power), Darci Brahma (Danehill- Grand Echezeaux) and Danish Counsel (Danehill-Court).

All have been impressive winners, but the advantage Master Regent holds over them is that each of that trio has made only one raceday appearance to his three.

"That experience is going to count for a lot," says Wallace.

"He's becoming more professional each time he goes to the races, which is what you expect.

"I thought his run in the Classique was very sound. He looked to be travelling better than any of the others on the home bend and Allan [Peard] said when he drew up level with them in the straight he started looking around. That was his first start left-handed and it was a good test for this race, which is the same way around."

There was a mountain of money to say Abbey Drive could make a winning debut for the Jillings/Yuill stable when he paraded at Avondale on January 22. He landed the punt, but only after racing greenly.

His winning margin ended up at nearly two lengths and he should have learned a lot from his first trip to the races. It remains to be seen if that improvement is sufficient to overcome Master Regent's greater experience.

"He looks promising and we've got a lot of time for him, so here's hoping he has learned a lot from the Avondale run," said Richard Yuill.

Trainer Stephen Autridge is mindful Danish Counsel's lack of experience, despite his runaway win on debut in the fast time of 57.69 for the 1000m.

"That day the rider on the horse inside him kicked its ears off to keep my bloke from leading. When they came to the 250m Hayden Tinsley gave him a click and he immediately put three lengths on them."

Autridge has no problem that Danish Counsel has the temperament to handle stress.

"He's the sort of horse that if he left an oat you'd ring the vet straight away to see what was wrong with him. I'm just hoping that when the pressure goes on in this race he knows what to do."

The million dollar horse, Darci Brahma, did everything asked of him to win his debut race at Avondale. The opposition this time is three to four lengths tougher.