Team Dalgety gets the "perfect result" with Krug

By Michael Guerin

Team Dalgety picked the right race to make a statement.

Trainers Cran and Chrissie took their best horse in Krug to the race named in honour of Cran’s legendary late father Jim and won it thanks to a perfect drive from their son Carter.

And they did it just over two weeks out from the New Zealand Cup so are now certain to make the iconic race and all of a sudden Krug is a factor again.

“The whole thing couldn’t have worked out better,” said Cran after the stunning effort to overcome a 40m backmark in the main handicap pace at Addington on Friday night.

Krug had gone into the race very much on the back foot, a battling fifth in the Hannon at Oamaru when he was found to have gunk in his throat and then he jumped a shadow last start at Addington and galloped.

While all that was happened the New Zealand Cup was getting stronger and stronger and was starting to look too tough for the horse who won the junior free-for-all on Cup day last year.

So Cran decided to skip the Flying Stakes at Ashburton on Monday and face the music off 40m on Friday, which in itself drew criticism.

Krug still had to be good and he was, pacing his last 800m in 54.5 seconds, the final 400m in 26.6.

So was that good enough for the Cup, especially this Cup?

“I look at it this way. We breed so many horses every year in this country so to get down the 15 out of three or four crops that can go around in a Cup, if you get the chance you should start,” says Dalgety.

“If we didn’t go well tonight I was thinking about the Kaikoura Cup but we will miss that now and probably go to the Cup trial.”

With young Carter, one of the more ambitious and mature junior drivers in the country, having aced the drive on Krug, his father admits he must at least be in consideration for the Cup drive.

“But we have time to think about that. I’m just thrilled to win the race named after Dad and see the horse back in great form and Carter nail it. It was a perfect result.”