 | RACING HISTORY |
YEAR: 2003
FEATURE RACE COMMENT
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| Hamish Hunter |
"This is the pinnacle of my life," said Hamish Hunter as he un-geared Grenadier following their win in the $30,000 Firestone Direct Junior Free-For-All. Hunter had also tasted success in the opening event with Galleons Cheer, and he said that to win two races at Addington on Cup Day was unbelievable.
Grenadier had indifferent form leading into his latest victory, the sixth of his 30-start career, but it didn't worry his trainer/driver. "I actually thought he went pretty good at Forbury Park last start," Hunter said. "He was slow away off a twenty metre handicap, and then he pulled really hard so I had to let him run. We tried to get the lead but couldn't, and ended up sitting parked, so all things considered I thought his eighth was a good run because he wasn't that far away from the winner."
On Cup Day Grenadier sat in the trail as Pocket Me took on the role of pacemaker, and it was all the encouragement that the J C's Suprimo gelding needed to produce his best. "He has got a mind of his own, this horse," Hunter continued. "I have always thought he has got a fair amont of ability, and when he gets it right he is a very good horse. But he doesn't always do that."
Grenadier is raced by Southland enthusiast Graham Cooney in partnership with his Wellington-based brother Brendan and the latter's partner Aya Kovesy. Graham helps to run the Blue Skies Meatworks plant, and is on the board of both the Southland and Highlanders rugby clubs, and is a keen breeder and horse owner, something that Hunter says makes it even more enjoyable to train a winner for him.
"They bought his dam (Butler's Fury) through the 'Harness Racing Weekly' from a National Bloodstock dispersal sale," Hunter said. "She was in foal to Road Machine at the time, but the foal did not come to much because it was just a pony. Then came Grenadier, and I just qualified a 3-year-old Caprock daughter out of the mare the other day. Unfortunately Butler's Dash died foaling last year."
Credit: John Robinson writing in HRWeekly 13Nov03