Three-pronged Wanganui Cup assault for Dickson

By Joshua Smith

Working a dozen horses and running a farm makes for long days for Hunterville trainer Scott Dickson, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“We have sold the dairy cows, so we are just farming bull beef now,” Dickson said. “we just do the horses early and move onto the farm work after that, it works in really well.”

Dickson will take his entire team to Wanganui Trotting Club’s annual meeting at Manawatu Raceway on Tuesday and he is hoping for plenty of success on his home track.

The Rangitikei horseman will have a three-pronged attack in the feature race on the card, the Ag Challenge Ltd Wanganui Cup Mobile Pace (2000m), led by last-start Palmerstonian Classic (2500m) runner-up The Bandit Queen.

“She went nice both days at Manawatu last month,” Dickson said. “She is very genuine and she will go the same again this week.”

Dickson also has Thunderfromthethrone and Fletch in the race and he is particularly looking forward to getting a gauge on recent stable addition and last start winner Fletch.

“He joined the stable after his last win and we will see how he measures up,” Dickson said. “He probably needs to lose a couple of points and step back a grade, but we will see what happens.

“He will get a good run from the one draw. He is a sit and sprint horse.”

Dickson is hoping some pace will be injected into the race to assist stablemate Thunderfromthethrone.

“He has been consistent, he’s just looking for the right run into it really,” he said. “If they run along a bit up front he should be fine.

“Whether there is enough speed in the race for him will be the big question, but he will be a good chance.”

While Dickson said he has plenty of other chances on the eight-race card, he has highlighted four-year-old mare Jive as one of his better chances.

The daughter of Rocknroll Dance finished runner-up over 1750m at New Plymouth last start and Dickson is expecting another good showing in the Palamountains Scientific Nutrition Mobile Pace (2500m) on Tuesday.

“Jive has got the good draw (1) to be handy and go close to winning in that field I would think,” Dickson said.

Dickson sources the majority of his racing team from the South Island and said he likes to utilise online platforms such as standardbred.gavelhouse.com to trade his racing stock.

“We just own our own and seem to have a bit of luck with the South Island ones,” he said.

“We pick the ones that we think can do the job up here. We try to win one or two with them and then flick them on, whether it’s back on gavelhouse or selling them to Aussie.”