Beautide connection is driving Rattray's Eureka dream

Winning the inaugural $80,000 Beautide (Bettor’s Delight) would be right with any career highlights for top Tasmanian harness racing horseman Todd Rattray.

Not only was Beautide the greatest pacer Rattray’s family has been involved with, but also one of the best pacers to come out of Tasmania.

The powerful gelding won two Inter Dominions (2014 and ’15), the 2013 Miracle Mile and a string of other major races in a career spanning 81 starts for 49 wins, 20 placings and a thumping $2,183,132 in prize money.

“It’s great they’ve named a race like this after him (Beautide) and it looks like I’ll have three runners in it, which will be a real thrill,” Rattray said.

The Beautide will be run on Hobart on Saturday week and the winner will snare Tasracing’s prized slot in the world’s richest harness race, the $2.1mil TAB Eureka, at Menangle on 2 September.

The Beautide connection runs even deeper given Menangle was home to his three biggest wins in the Miracle and those two Inter Dominions while trained by Rattray’s brother, James.

“Just to be a big part of the Beautide will be great, but Magician will be favourite and if he would win and get that ticket into the TAB Eureka it would be fantastic,” Todd Rattray said.

“The TAB Eureka is shaping as an incredible race and I know our horse would need to improve a lot to give it a shake, but, hey, Beautide improved a lot when he went to that big track at Menangle.”

Magician impressively won the Group 3 Raider Stakes for four-year-olds in Hobart last Sunday week and will sharpen-up for the Beautide with his final lead-up run in a 2200m race in Launceston on Sunday.

“We’ve decided to run him again this week. He backs up well and it should top him off nicely,” Rattray said.

Magician has been a “work in progress” for Rattray, but has turned the corner this season with his last seven starts netting five wins and two seconds to take his career record to 17 starts for nine wins, five seconds and two thirds.

“He hasn’t been an easy horse to train, to be honest,” he said.

“You could always see the ability there, but he wanted to hang quite badly and he just didn’t want to go at times. He’s been a challenge for sure.

“But his last four or five runs, he’s turned the corner and he’s showing a bit more speed and really developed a will to win.

“His strength would be his best asset. That night (two starts back) he sat outside Joe The Bookie and just kept coming, it showed me how much he wanted to win.”

Rattray also plans to run four-year-old Maebee and three-year-old Nyack in the Beautide.

“Magician is clearly my best hope, but Nyack would be the next best. He ran a pretty quick quarter at Hobart (when third) last time out,” he said.

“Maebee is going along ok, but doesn’t have the will to win of a horse like Magician.”

by Adam Hamilton, for Tasracing