Racing: Heavy track concerns Frost

Rachael Frost is disappointed to have lost her rider Isaac Lupton for Spirit Of Alaton in tomorrow's $25,000 Manawatu ITM Awapuni Hurdles.

However, she's not totally surprised.

Lupton told the Otaki trainer immediately after winning the Waikato Hurdles on Spirit Of Alaton four weeks ago that there was a strong chance he would be required for Spirit Of Alaton's main danger at Awapuni, Mickey. And he was right.

Spirit Of Alaton will now be ridden by Tommy Hazlett.

The horse loses little there and Frost said she was more concerned about Spirit Of Alaton's fitness after foot problems.

"He's got a history of abscesses forming in his feet and he's missed a bit of work lately after one appeared," said Frost.

Which makes the heavy Awapuni track a double whammy - Spirit Of Alaton prefers a track better than the official 10 rating yesterday and the more testing the footing the more his slight cloud over hard fitness.

It's clear Frost is not going into this race with the same confidence she attacked the Waikato Hurdles with.

"I can see a couple of positives in that the field overall is not as strong as the Waikato Hurdles and the track will not be bottomless.

"But he's got topweight of 67.5kg and there are a couple in the field that are unlikely to allow him a soft lead.

"I'd say they'll be taking us on."

Isaac Lupton said he felt Spirit Of Alaton hadn't travelled as well winning this year's Waikato Hurdles as he had when winning that race 12 months earlier. So with Mickey carrying 4.5kg less, Lupton will have reason to feel a touch confident on the Kevin Myers-trained jumper.

Hawkes Bay trainer Paul Nelson would love to be able to ask No Rush'n what he thought of his chances in tomorrow's other jumping feature, the $25,000 FMG Manawatu Steeplechase.

No Rush'n is a brother to Nelson's former outstanding jumper No Hero.

The problem is he doesn't always seem to remember that on raceday.

No Rush'n scored by a runaway eight lengths last time but Nelson says he's not holding his breath waiting for the horse to produce the same performance tomorrow.

"If No Hero's brother turns up he'll go close to winning, but this horse sometimes forgets who he is.

"That was shades of the other old fella at Hastings last time."

The advantage for No Rush'n is that this is hardly a classic Manawatu Steeplechase line-up in terms of strength.

"The northern representation is down on talent and there are one or two from down this way that haven't stepped out yet," said Nelson.

"That puts my horse right in the race, but it's when you really expect him to go well that he doesn't."

Nelson said the track conditions should suit No Rush'n perfectly.

Nana's form of chasing Climbing High home in second place in the recent Waikato Steeplechase looks good on paper, but she was greatly assisted by fallers late in the race.

It probably would have been a completely different story had the field all stayed on their feet.

Logan James prefers decent footing and if there is any drying of the Manawatu track his chances would improve parallel to that.