Another bold run from Johny Johny at Te Rapa this weekend will give Cambridge trainers Tim and Margaret Carter assurance that they can press on towards the Gr.2 Waikato Stud Foxbridge Plate (1200m) with confidence.
The Charm Spirit five-year-old will look to make it three wins from four starts this preparation when he tackles Saturday's Mike Stent Decorators Sprint (1200m) at Te Rapa.
Stable apprentice Jim Chung, currently on loan to Awapuni trainer Mike Breslin, will head north to take the plum ride on a horse Tim Carter describes as "the fastest we've trained".
"When he won at Te Rapa last time, he was a bit slow away but once Jessica (Allen, jockey) pushed him, that was it he was away. Once he gets on the bit, he just wants to go," Carter said.
"We'll probably look at this one and then maybe the Foxbridge and then we'd look to give him a break and have another crack over the summer. The problem with him now is he's getting up in the weights and he's not a big horse."
A winner of seven of his 14 starts, Johny Johny had won five of his first eight starts before a string of three unplaced runs last summer, which included an eighth placing in the Gr.1 Railway (1200m) at Te Rapa.
The Carters believe those outs were the result of jarring up through carrying big weights in training on firm surfaces, so they have since transformed his trackwork regime.
"He'd been jarring up quite badly over the summer. The only one who could ride him was Nick Downs and he's quite heavy," Carter said.
"I said to Marg 'we've got to change his training'. He's a hell of a hard horse to ride and Marg had said he was too tough for her.
"I said to her 'Marg, you need to take some brave pills and take him out in the middle' so he's only been working in the middle of the track since then and just before a race Marg gives him a sprint up the straight.
"It's worked. He's not sore anymore. Over summer we just couldn't get him right, just jarring up and carrying the heavy weight in training."
The upshot of the change of training routine has been that Johny Johny has produced heavy track wins at Pukekohe either side of sixth placing at Te Rapa behind Gospodin when he made a midrace move to the front and couldn't hold off the late-closing swoopers.
"It's really satisfying what he's been doing because we always knew he had the ability but just when he came up against the good ones on hard tracks, he didn't show his true ability," Carter said.
"We think he could still win a decent race on a good track. He went 1:08 one day at Ellerslie over 1200m and he won that quite easily. On straight-out speed, he's faster than any other horse we've had."
Expecting Johny Johny to get topweight, Carter phoned Breslin to engage Chung, who will now take the sprinter's weight down to a luxury 54kg, 6kg less than the carded topweight Gospodin.
"Jim knows the horse. He's ridden him in trackwork,” Carter said. “His work has been super and if we've going to be beaten, it might be through bad luck. We'd be surprised if he wasn't really competitive."
The Carters other runner at Te Rapa on Saturday is Tivaci gelding Pukana, who has drawn wide for the 1400m maiden.
"He's a real talent," said Carter, who has performed several pukana over the years, most notably doing the haka ahead of New Zealand Maori rugby matches in the mid-1970s.
"The reason he's called Pukana is when I bought him I had Brian O'Shea vet him and he came back to me and said 'hey Tim, that horse is a bloody nice horse but he's got no teeth and he can't keep his tongue in his mouth'.
"He can hold his tongue in but most of the time it's poking out. As a young horse he had a paddock accident and lost his teeth but it hasn't affected him. He's a really nice horse."