As the Aussie horses look to take a clean sweep of the 2011 Interdominion series there’s one kiwi who is quite outspokenly optimistic about his chances come the finals.
Sean McCaffrey is seen by many as New Zealand’s best hope in either of the Interdominion finals with Sovereignty the second favourite for the $250,000 Trotting showpiece.
The kiwi’s have all but forfeited the pacing final with a wave of New Zealand bred but Australian trained horses coming back to bite them this year.
In the trots though Mcaffrey is quite upfront and direct about what he expects from his horse.
“I think you reverse the draws from last week and we beat Let Me Thru,” said McCaffrey of Sovereignty’s second to the series favourite last Friday.
“I rate the Aussies but I am not scared of them. I think my horse is just as good as them and I won’t be scared to get up outside them and see how tough they are. In this series you aren’t going to be given anything, you are going to have to take it and I think my horse can do that.”
After he said this the New Zealand Herald’s Michael Guerin made some interesting observations about the comment.
“This sort of quote is what we usually expect from cocky Australians rather than shellshocked Kiwi trainers midway through a series in which we are getting pasted.
Who better to bring about an Australian downfall than McCaffrey, the most Australian-like of New Zealand trainers.
McCaffrey speaks like an Aussie, his conversations full of amusing quips and intelligent yet biased analysis.
You could make a case he trains more like an Aussie, his horses are often fit at the start of their campaigns and McCaffrey always encouraging his drivers to be aggressive.
McCaffrey’s colours are even Australian, being green and gold.”
If you picked up the overwhelming frustration and discontent with the state of New Zealand harness racing from Guerin you weren’t imagining it.
Nothing annoys the kiwi’s more than being embarrassed on their own soil, least of all by Australians, especially when a good portion where bred in NZ to begin with.
For McCaffrey though it’s going to take a lot more than ‘cocky biased analysis’ as the Australians have the runs on the board while his horse has no series wins but plenty of excuses.
The fact is unless you cross the line first the ‘what if’s’ don’t matter and on Friday night Sovereignty will need to come from the second row and overcome two time champion Sundon’s Gift.
You would never guess though, McCaffrey thinks his horse is better.
“Unless he was tied up last Friday they have a problem because he stopped way too badly for a horse of his ability,” he says of Sundon’s Gift.
“He is a great horse but we can beat him and I want Maurice [McKendry] to get handy and put our boy into the race.”
Whether you consider that realistic or not, kiwi’s are taking comfort in the fact a New Zealand trainer has the confidence to not lay down and really put up a fight.
Fair enough too considering the horse does have a good record coming into the 2011 Interdominions.
“He has had five hard runs in six weeks over the Christmas period and his best one was his last one.
“He will handle a hard series and we will let him show us how good he is.”
One thing you can never do is discount a kiwi, they proved that by being belted by Bangladesh before the cricket World Cup only to somehow beat South Africa and make the semi-finals.
If Sovereignty can perform a similar trick he’ll be close enough to favourite for the final especially if his barrier luck turns around.
The final could be a bit of a stumbling block though, after all, how many World Cups have the Kiwi’s won?