Cash staying close to home

By Adam Hamilton

NSW trainer Craig Cross is plotting a Queensland Winter Carnival raid, but the flying Cash N Flow won’t be part of it.

Despite the Queensland Carnival being stripped right back because of COVID-19, Cross has picked out a batch from his in-form team to head north at different times.

But who will drive them is the burning question.

That’s because Queensland’s borders remain closed, meaning any people who enter the state are required to complete 14 days or quarantine.

“Unless the borders open, I won’t be able to pop up and drive them,” stable driver Luke McCarthy said. “It’ll be a month before any of ours start racing there, but there’s talk it could be September before the Queensland government opens the borders. Hopefully it’s much sooner.

“We’ll deal with the driver issue when we get closer to it, but we’ll send one of staff up soon to do the quarantine and be ready for when the horses start heading up in a few weeks.”

Cash N Flow won his six successive Menangle mile free-for-all last Saturday night and that’s why he won’t be going anywhere.

“He’s in the zone. He’s a miler, who loves the Menangle and prefers his races spaced a couple of weeks, more like a thoroughbred does,” McCarthy said.

“He’ll be staying here. There’s usually a mile free-for-all for him every couple of weeks and for good money. He just keeps earning here.”

Cash N Flow’s enjoyed a terrific season with 15 starts netting eight wins, four seconds and $159,550 in stakemoney. He’s now won 24 of his 58 career runs and pocketed $425,141.

McCarthy quickly added Cross’s two other stable big guns, Miracle Mile winner King Of Swing and Alta Orlando, certainly wouldn’t be Queensland-bound either.

“They had good breaks after the Miracle Mile and won’t be back racing until late July,” he said. “The plan is to have a few Menangle runs in August and September before heading to Melbourne is they still run the Victoria Cup in mid-October.”