Dream Of You shows class at Alexandra Park

By Michael Guerin

Dream Of You looked every inch a future Rowe Cup horse when he beat some talented open class trotters at Alexandra Park on Thursday night, stepping to the lead and dominating the race.

He beat Springbank Mason easily and while he had a 30m start the latter has already proved he can trot with the open class horses and Dream Of You will soon be able to as well.

But it wasn’t always that way.

He looked a smart horse when he ran second on debut and won three starts later but his next 10 starts were winless, a rollercoaster of good rivals, bad luck and poor manners.

Dream Of You’s co-owners and breeders Jack and Joan Davies, as nice a people as you would like to meet, even got a decent offer for Dream Of You and Balle said most owners would have sold.

“But I knew he was going to be a good horse and they believed in him too,” says Balle.

“He had the talent, we had seen that, but he had niggles. One of the most annoying was a splint which sometimes aggravates one of his tendon just enough to affect him.

“But you can get that with the Love You stock, those growing pains and I have found especially splints.“The only good thing about splints is you know they eventually go away.”

So time, maturity, some patient handling from Zachary Butcher and Balle’s belief have all helped Dream Of You develop into one of the more promising trotters in the north.

Thursday’s win was his fourth and he could have gone way faster than his 3:31 for 2700m and will get the chance to do so soon.

“We are going to keep him going for at least another six weeks,” says Balle.

“It is a good chance for him to learn and the stakes are still good in winter but you aren’t racing the best horses.

“Raelene (wife) and I are going to have a holiday in August and among other things go to the Hambo at The Meadowlands so if we race him through until around about then it probably works out well.

“Then he can have a break and I think this time next year he could be a Rowe Cup horse.”

Balle wasn’t the only trainer starring with the trotters on Thursday night as Cambridge’s Ross Paynter trained a squaregaiting double with Itainneccesarilyso in the hands of Monika Ranger in Race 3 and Elle Bee Jay an all-the-way winner for Andre Poutama in the last.

In between the Telfer/Cullen team provided the trifecta in the juvenile race won by Rock Band (Art Major) while another son of Art Major in New York Minute used the passing lane to down hot favourite The Big Lebowski in the main pace.