3 minute read

An end to the “big wet” being experienced across New Zealand will determine the starting point for the summer campaign of promising sprinter Fully Funded.

Trainer Joanne Surgenor has ambitious plans for the five-year-old who made his first racetrack appearance for the season last week with an impressive win over 800 metres at the Ruakaka trials. The moody gelding did everything right as he sat outside the pace in his open grade heat before lengthening stylishly in the concluding stages to register a comfortable one and a half length victory.

The gallop was just what Surgenor was looking for as she plots a path to a possible tilt at the Gr. 1 Sistema Railway Stakes on New Year’s Day at Ellerslie.

“I was hoping he’d get a good hit-out and that’s exactly what we got,” she noted.

“I asked Sam (Collett) to put him outside the speed and let him run to the line which he did very nicely. He is a late maturing type, both mentally and physically, but he looks like he has really grown up during his break which is very exciting.

“He used to do a few things wrong around home and on raceday but he was very calm this time so hopefully he has got that out of his system now.”

A model of consistency during his last campaign where he won three times and was placed on a further six occasions from his eleven starts, the Fully Fledged gelding will most likely start his new campaign in Listed company at Te Rapa on the 5th of November.

“As long as the rain stops sometime soon I’m looking at the Legacy Lodge Sprint at Te Rapa early next month for his first run,” Surgenor advised.

“That’s a big if though as it just can’t seem to stop raining at the moment. He’s hopeless on anything worse than dead so we’ll just play it by ear as we get closer to that date.

“Ideally he would run at Te Rapa then onto the Counties Bowl and then both the Concorde and Railway after that but that is if everything goes to plan which we all know is not always the case with horses.

“I think he is good enough to tackle those sorts of races and at this stage that is where we will aim with him.”