Racing: Tarawera may headline Australian raiders

Tarawera, winner of Saturday's The Australian Steeplechase at Sandown, will head a team of jumpers that co-trainers Brian Johnston and Fran Houlahan intend to race in England next year.

Johnston and Houlahan were also celebrating their 29th wedding anniversary on Saturday but the victory was bittersweet for them as they could have their livelihood pulled from under their feet with jumps racing under threat of being banned in Victoria after this season.

"I think jumps racing has a limited future here," Johnston said.

"It's all dependent on KPIs [key performance indicators] and there is a formula in place to say whether it stays or goes.

"Mr Hines [Racing Victoria Ltd boss Rob Hines] said the other day we weren't meeting the KPIs and it was looking fairly ordinary for us.

"He's the boss so you have to take heed of that."

Johnston said that ideally he would like to take six horses to England in January and aim them towards the Cheltenham Festival in March, but in the meantime he must recruit some horses to take with Tarawera.

"We've been thinking about it for a long while and if we've got the right horses we'll have a crack at Cheltenham," Johnston said.

"If the right horses come along we'd buy them but they must understand they won't be worth much money in this country but they'll be worth a lot of money in other countries."

Sent out at $4.40 in the A$100,000 feature over 3900m, Tarawera, ridden by Trent Wells, was handy throughout before racing past the leader Last Shogun ($10) well before the home turn.

He found plenty under pressure to hold off Virvacity ($4.80) by 2 lengths with Last Shogun fighting back to be a length away third, ahead of Our Santa.

"He's going to make a great horse in England next year," Johnston said.

The disappointment of Saturday's race was Mazzacano ($3.50 fav), who was after a record third win in the race but was pulled up by Steven Pateman after struggling back in last place on the home turn.

Trainer Robbie Laing said he could find nothing wrong with the horse after the race but he would have a thorough veterinary check before a decision was made on whether to retire him.

Tainui Teina fell early in the race but was not injured while Brett Scott was dislodged from Mali Juraj at the last fence.

In the following race, 4-year-old Black And Bent produced one of the most dominant wins in memory in The Australian Hurdle.

Jockey Steven Pateman declared the Black Hawk gelding was the best jumper he had ridden and should be aimed at the champion hurdles in England, while plans are in motion to qualify him for an invitation to next year's Nakayama Grand Jump in Japan.

"He is an absolute superstar," Pateman said. "I have been waiting all my career to ride such a good horse. He won that easily. I'm just so thrilled."

Trained by Robert Smerdon, Black And Bent ($1.75 fav) swapped the lead with Desert Master on several occasions but had the race won a long way from the winning post.

Rounding the home turn he broke six lengths clear of the field and turned the event into a procession.

The margin was 12 lengths but it looked a much bigger gap to the second horse, Corries ($26), who ran on from second last, and his Robbie Laing-trained stablemate Vindicating ($15) was third.

Smerdon said Black And Bent's improvement in his second season was remarkable.

- AAP