Racing: Girl power all too rare commodity

Laura Tunnell would make the record books if she won today's $70,000 Great Northern Hurdles on unbeaten jumper Starbo.

She won't be the first woman to win the race - Michelle Hopkins, now Strawbridge - achieved that, but Hopkins is the only female name in the record books.

Tunnell would certainly be the least experienced rider to have won New Zealand's greatest hurdle race.

She has ridden just four winners, one in 2001 and three since she re-applied for her licence this year specifically to ride Starbo in an emerging hurdling career.

And she hasn't missed opportunities - Tunnell and Starbo are two from two over the jumps.

She wants this race, she said last night, for her 19-month daughter Jane, for owner and trainer Alan James and for "all those people who have helped me along the way".

It won't be easy. Starbo, despite a wonderful ability to jump a fence, is as inexperienced as his rider and has yet to face a field of this class.

His record also suggests the lack of rain this week will count against him, although Tunnell said the camp was not concerned about the firmish track conditions.

"He'll run okay on it."

Tunnell said she was not nervous, despite the huge occasion.

"I get excited and very focussed on the race."

Starbo has the speed to lead, but Tunnell did not see her making the Northern pace.

"There should be plenty of speed on most of the way. I'm imagining myself mid-field somewhere."

This is one of the best - and certainly the most even - Great Northern Hurdles fields in a couple of decades.

Fellow Wanganui trainer Evan Rayner gives his pair Van Winkle and Wednesday Night a winning shot each.

Van Winkle is by far the more experienced and should be considerably shorter on the tote than his stablemate, but Rayner has been excited about the Northern prospects of Wednesday Night for some time.

"I give him a great chance of winning."

Van Winkle's inability to relax and race kindly if he gets into the clear in running will always make him vulnerable in a race like this.

"The idea is to bury him right in the pack somewhere and hopefully he'll bowl along nicely. If he does he can be right in it."

Like most trainers in the race, with the exception of John Wheeler, Rayner had been hoping for rain.

"I don't think the good track will worry Wednesday Night. Van Winkle may not be too disadvantaged, but obviously rain for him would have been a bonus."

Dual Grand National winner Just A Swagger is one who might be hampered a little by the conditions - all four of his career wins have been in heavy conditions.

He will be looking to offset that with his great stamina.

The Ken and Ann Browne stable has a record of winning multiple races at Great Northerns and in the deep mud.

Ann Browne said she would have loved to have seen rain, but had put it out of her mind.

"I've got a policy of not worrying about things I can do nothing about. I refuse to think about it."

The Browne trio of Drizzle, Waikiki Prince and Poacher face a tough task in the Hurdles.

Drizzle, said Ann Browne, had not been affected by his heavy fall in the Grand National Hurdles.

"He felt well enough when I worked him the other day."

Waikiki Prince ran on strongly for fourth two weeks ago and Poacher surprised a few by finishing second in the same race.

"I never thought he was as good as Waikiki Prince, but he finished in front of him at Ellerslie."

The Storytella and Nasser are probably the best of the stable's four in the Great Northern Steeplechase.

The Storytella was virtually put out of the race by a bad early skirmish in the Pakuranga Hunt Cup.

"He couldn't make up the ground and put in a couple of ordinary jumps," said Ann Browne.

"Poacher was affected by the same incident and he did really well to finish fourth behind Bart and Real Tonic.

"None of the others up in the first five or six were affected, so I was delighted with his effort."