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Bruce Wallace is not normally a betting man but yesterday was tempted to break rank for a slice of Sufficient's new Telecom Derby price.
The TAB bookies reacted to the colt's Telecom Championship Stakes late scratching because of raceday rain by easing him from a single-digit favourite to a juicy $14 quote for the $2.2 million Ellerslie feature.
His relaxed Takanini trainer, however, is sure he can get the horse into New Zealand's richest race through an alternative route, without compromising his chances of winning on February 28.
"I've got no doubt Sufficient can still win the Derby," said Wallace yesterday. "Every horse who has popped its head up lately and said 'I can win' Sufficient has beaten them.
"Without getting too cocky about it, if we can get our horse there and fit, I'm confident he'll really give it a shake."
Wallace said Sufficient was likely to run next at Matamata on Saturday, either in the R90 1600m event, or in the listed Stanley Group TRAC Stakes over 2000m.
But if the weather looks dodgy again - rain is forecast for later this week - Wallace would be just as content galloping the horse between races at Avondale on Thursday, and again at a Breakfast with the Stars function at Ellerslie next Tuesday.
With Sufficient now likely to make the starting line-up, there is no pressure on Wallace to chase the necessary stakemoney to make the field.
"He just needs another anaerobic workout without knocking him around," he said.
"There is a great edge on him at the moment and I don't want to take that out of him."
The Champagne Stakes winner has had just two runs since returning to the track from minor knee surgery to remove a knee bone spur last September.
He won impressively fresh-up in an open 1600m at Ellerslie on January 10, and followed that up with a narrow second over the same course and distance to Mill Duckie a fortnight later.
Championship Stakes winner Down The Road was a length adrift in third place.
Wallace said the velvet-coated Zabeel colt had been "working the house down" since then and would be spot on for the Derby's 2400m.
"After what we achieved with Able Master [the 2000 Auckland Cup winner] I realised that if you can get them to run 2000m, they'll run the rest of it because they can stay.
"If they can't stay, it doesn't matter how fit you get them, they won't get the trip."
Matamata trainer John Sargent was equally composed yesterday about plotting Heza Karma Karzi's new path to the Derby after a minor injury forced a late withdrawal from the Championship Stakes at the weekend.
Sargent said the one-race winner was now 100 per cent fit again and would run next in the St Leger Trial (2100m) at Otaki on Friday or in an R80 2000 event at Matamata on Saturday.
Higher-order defections have now taken the stakemoney pressure off Sargent qualifying his $31 fixed odds Derby hope.
"But he probably needs another race anyway," said Sargent. "I'll make a decision on where after seeing the nominations.
Heza Karma Karzi's late-charging fifth in the Waikato Guineas (2000m) on January 31 was a highlight of the race.
The TAB's shortest fixed odds fancies yesterday: $5.50, Jungle Boots; $6, Le Baron; $7 Coniston Bluebird, My Scotsgrey; $10, Tell A Tale; $12, The Meista, Easy Ryder; $14, Sufficient; $26, Late Addition, Gallant; $31, The Spaniard, I Robot, Fears Nothing, Court Ruler, Heza Karma Karzi.
