Hewitt chasing Carnival Of Cups bonus after Young win

WITH $20,000 up for grabs as part of the Carnival Of Cups Bonus this season, Goulburn harness racing trainer Bradley Hewitt has signalled his intention to chase the extra money on offer after Spare Me Days won Saturday night's Young Pacers Cup.

The new bonus encourages horses to compete in the Carnival Of Cups' six biggest events, with the owners attendance at the feature meetings scoring important bonus points.

Three of the six feature races in the series have now been run and Spare Me Days currently leads the disclosed leaderboard.

The owners' bonus points will not be announced until a function at Tabcorp Park Menangle for the Bulli Cup meeting on April 30.

Spare Me Days is four points in front of the Dennis Picker trained Condagen with James Rattray's Pachacuti in third spot a further two points behind.

So while Penrith's Renshaw Cup on Thursday April 14 is the next logical target for Spare Me Days, Hewitt confirmed he is considering taking the four year old to Queensland for the Winter Carnival.

"The short term targets will be the Carnival Of Cups Bonus Races, Spare Me Days won at Young and finished second at Goulburn, so he is going pretty well in the point score and the extra prizemoney would be good," Hewitt said

"We will go to Queensland later in the year but the Breeders Challenge in New South Wales is also an important target for the horse."

Hewitt confirmed he had been disappointed with Spare Me Days earlier in the season but the son of Ifihadyourluck had turned the corner recently.

"He was a little bit below his best at the start of this campaign, he'd put in a really good run and then he would go poorly at his next start.

He had a few little issues but I've been able to get on top of them and as a result he is absolutely flying.

"Going into Saturday night's Young Cup, despite the depth of the race, I honestly thought he could win, there were some nice horses in the race that looked set to run along a bit. I thought the smaller track would even the field up too but to win the way he did was something I really couldn't believe."

Spare Me Days was the first leg of a driving double for Hewitt with Gotta Go Jazzy Jet winning another of the night's feature races, the Young Oaks.

"She ran sixth in the NSW Oaks a couple of weeks ago and I told her owner Phil Thurston to take her home and give her a few days in the paddock to get over it."

Gotta Go Jazzy Jet followed race favourite Art Mistress throughout and was produced on the turn before unleashing a devastating finish.

"I was lucky early, I thought I was going to have to keep on working forward out three wide at the start but Steve Turnbull went to the pegs instead of being on Bernie's (Art Mistress driver) back so I was able to slot in and get the perfect run.

"I thought Bern would have got going a bit earlier than what he did but it helped because I didn't have to come out too wide too early."

Greg Hayes