By Michael Guerin
For the majority of racehorses their problem is not having enough speed.
Not Loteria. Her problem is controlling all the speed she has.
The rapid going four-year-old recorded her third career win when overcoming an unruly starting position in a Metro Trot heat at Alexandra Park on Friday night and did it in style.
She smashed favourite Pretty In Pink after looping the field in the middle stages and racing to a two-and-three-quarter length win looking to have a few gears still left.
Loteria is trained by Sammy Kilgour and driven by her fiancee Joshua Dickie with the pair partially co-training her before their day jobs working at Stonewall Stud.
“I usually work her at John’s (Dickie, Joshua’s Dad) before I go to Stonewall to work but on fast work days Josh will come home at lunchtime and drive her,” explains Kilgour, who part owns Loteria.
“We are both so lucky to work with the creme of the crop at Stonewall but to win a race with one of our own is very special.”
Kilgour and Dickie brought Loteria back to New Zealand from Victoria when they moved here nearly two years ago but she has been a work in progress since.
“She as always had that ability but she just wants to go too fast,” explains Kilgour.
“We have worked on it and she is getting better but when she galloped in a juniors race last start she got put on the unruly.
“That might have helped her tonight but she also loves all this mobile racing and we have a few more of those coming up, including the final of this series, which should really help her.”
A few more wins might even help Dickie and Kilgour finally get married.
“We haven’t set a date yet and to be honest it is so expensive to get marrried. She might need to keep winning some races.”
Later in the night the other Metro Trot heat was won in effortless style by Pantani, who picked a great night to get things right as all the favourites around him galloped.
He bolted in for driver Benjamin Butcher and trotted much more smoothly against the markers so may be ready to return to his form of last season.
Earlier Belle Niege just got up to justify her hot favouritism in the main trot, making it three wins on end.
She was forced back to last as several inside her seemed keen to be involved in the early rush but was still too good for a brave It Ain’t Me Babe to give junior driver Crystal Hackett her 50th winner for the season, a new milestone in her blossoming career.
Not quite so popular with the punters was a total Alexandra Park rarity when Tony Herlihy reined a 60-1 fixed odds winner for Arna Donnelly in Final Change.
It is rare enough that Herlihy drives for the top Cambridge trainer but in his 3700-plus wins in New Zealand it would be doubtful Herlihy has reined home 60-1 or longer winners more than a handful of times.
He backed it up in the next on the card when he launched Te Ahi for an all-the-way win in the Tactical Approach at Alabar Northern Trotting Champs at 20-1 fixed, so a remarkable 1281-1 back to back race double from The Iceman.
Te Ahi is trained by Graeme Rogerson, whose harness horses are looked after by James Stormont, so he deserves at much of the training credit for winning the $25,000 feature trot.
The Nevele R Fillies heat was taken out in effortless fashion by Sweet Maggie Mae, who blasted straight to the lead for Andre Poutama and never looked like being beaten.
