Williamson testing Addington waters

Branxholme trainer Nathan Williamson is heading north on a fact-finding mission to see where some of his better racehorses are at compared to their Canterbury counterparts.

Partytime (Bettor’s Delight) has been impressive in winning both of his starts and Friday’s heat of the Rising Stars will be a chance to measure his progress.

“He’s gone nicely in his first two starts. It’s a big ask for him on Friday night with the big trip up there. We’ll have to see how he handles it all. He’s a progressive horse and still in the early stages of how he might develop into a nice horse,” Williamson said.

At this point he’s unsure as to whether Partytime will race in the second heat of the series a fortnight later.

“It depends on how he goes and how he handles it all. He’s not a big robust animal. If he got enough points to get through to the final we might skip the second heat and bring him home to prepare him for the final. This series has popped up and I thought it was a way of keeping him active and ticking through the winter.”

Utah Jazz (Bettor’s Delight) was driven aggressively out of the gate at her last start at Ascot Park but faded finishing sixth.

“I had to do plenty of work the other day. She’s got a good record for six starts and four wins and the two times she’s had to work early she hasn’t finished her races off as well. What I’d say is that we won’t do that on Friday night. We’ll look to come at them with one run. We’ll take her up there for a trip, then freshen her up for some of the spring racing.”  

Utah Jazz draws off the front row in Race Eleven and faces a field of well seasoned race- hard campaigners.

by Bruce Stewart, for Harnesslink