Racing: Mr Feelgood confirms toughness

Mr Feelgood added to his list of major wins at Melton on Saturday night. Photo / Gary Wild

Mr Feelgood will try and pen another unusual chapter to one of the strangest stories in pacing history in the Auckland Cup.

With the Alexandra Park classic now on his radar it is shaping as the possibly the hottest harness race of the season, with racing's X-factor mare De Lovely also a Cup chance.

Mr Feelgood added to his unparalleled career story with a crushing win in the A$425,000 Victoria Cup at Melton on Saturday night.

After working hard twice in the race he held out Canterbury pacer Sleepy Tripp by two metres, with the luckless I'm Themightyquinn flashing into third.

The race showed just how rigorous the Grand Circuit can be, with horses coming out of the record-run Miracle Mile, like Smoken Up and Villagem, feeling the effect of a torrid summer.

But Mr Feelgood once again proved he is a horse who can bounce back from almost anything to produce his best at the most elite level.

Saturday night's win follows his victory in the time-honoured Little Brown Jug over a mile in Ohio as a 3-year-old, then the standing start 3050m of a Hunter Cup just months after arriving in Australia two years ago and an Interdominion Final in which he beat Blacks A Fake after being below his best for the week leading into the race.

Because of the many defeats he has suffered in and around those races, Mr Feelgood is not many people's idea of a champion but few horses anywhere in the world would have won such an array of classics under such diverse circumstances. So why not the Auckland Cup on March 11, just to add a right-handed mobile staying race to his collection?

"I hadn't thought about it till recently but it makes perfect sense for us," said trainer-driver Luke McCarthy.

"It is two weeks out from the Interdoms [at Addington] so we will be in New Zealand anyway and I always work him right-handed at home.

"So I might go over there for the free-for-all the week before to give him a look at the track and then the Auckland Cup."

That raises the realistic possibility the Auckland Cup meeting could attract Blacks A Fake, Smoken Up, Mr Feelgood, defending champion Monkey King and comeback king Auckland Reactor.

But while they are also all heading to the Interdominions, the Auckland Cup could have an X-factor horse the Interdominions won't in champion mare De Lovely.

She will be nominated for the Interdominions today but trainer Ian Small says competing in that series is extremely unlikely.

"I think it would be far more likely she will have a one-off, open-class target like the Auckland Cup, which is what we did last year with Tintin In America and he almost won it," said the South Auckland horseman.

That sort of field, with support from the likes of Sleepy Tripp, Power Of Tara and Stunin Cullen would be one of the great Auckland Trotting Cups of all time, a contest to rival the great Cups of the early 1980s and 1990s.

Sleepy Tripp was fantastic in second on Saturday night, having to sit three wide with cover for the last 1200m and he is firmly established as an open-class force now but the other Kiwi in the race, Bondy, faded out.

Sleepy Tripp's trainer-driver Mark Purdon had no luck a race earlier when I Can Doosit may have cost himself victory in the A$125,000 Trotting Grand Prix with a mid-race gallop.

He lost eight lengths but ran on well to beaten by much less than that as Aussie hero Sundon's Gift clung on for a half head win.

Sundon's Gift was brave in victory but after being worked over early was left vulnerable and had I Can Doosit not galloped he could well have beaten the two-time Interdominion champion.

FEELING GOOD

* Mr Feelgood writes another chapter in his amazing career by winning the Victoria Cup.

* He beat Kiwi pacer Sleepy Tripp, who had a hard run three wide.

* Mr Feelgood and Australia's other elite pacers are looking at contesting the Auckland Cup in March.

* The Cup could also be on the cards for wonder mare De Lovely.