Photo: Len Smith, Pacepix/Club Menangle
Aussie owner Brendan James hopes it’s a case of second time lucky with high-class Victorian pacer Rock N Roll Doo.
James today confirmed he had iced a deal for Rock N Roll Doo to run in the Barrett Homes slot in the $1mil The Race By Grins at Cambridge on April 12.
Last year, when Rock N Roll Doo was the toast of Victorian harness racing, he landed the Aussie Lads slot, but lost form, had some issues and the Cambridge trip was aborted.
“We’re calling it take-two,” James said. “You know how much we wanted to go last year and it didn’t turn out. It’s great to have a second chance and we thank the folks involved with the Barrett Homes slot for that.
“He’s a bit of a forgotten horse, people move on quickly in this game, but we think he’s pretty close to his very best again.”
Rock N Roll Doo will get a chance to prove that in the $A100,000 Light Horse free-for-all (2300m) at Menangle on Saturday night.
“Anthony Butt has been driving him and was glowing in his report after last week. We think he’ll run a booming race on Saturday,” James said.
“More broadly, we’ve leant a lot on Anthony with his Group 1 experience for a steer on whether we should go back to NZ and he’s been extraordinarily convincing.
“We feel like we’ve got unfinished business over there (NZ) after things didn’t go right in our NZ tilt in late 2022 and then we missed the Grins last year.”
The Michael Stanley-trained Rock N Roll Doo is booked on a flight from Melbourne to Auckland on March 24.
“Cran Dalgety will kindly help out in a caretaker capacity because, all going well, the horse could be in NZ for a while,” James said.
“He’ll be there early enough for us to look seriously at the Waikato Mile on April 4 as a lead-up to the Grins.
“Then there are races like the Taylor Mile and Messenger after the Grins.
“If everything went well, we could even look at keeping him over there beyond those races for a couple of standing start races, the Roy Purdon and Auckland Cup.”
Grant Eynon, one of the Barrett Homes owners, was thrilled to cement a deal with James and Rock N Roll Doo.
“We’re proud and pleased to have secured a quality horse like Rock N Roll Doo. We’ve seen what he’s capable of at his best and it’s great to have him representing us,” he said.
Rock N Roll Doo has raced 48 times for 14 wins, 12 placings and banked $575,875.
His biggest win came in the 2022 Group 1 Victoria Cup and more recently he sat parked and beat Spirit Of St Louis in the Group 1 Len Smith Mile at Menangle last September. - Adam Hamilton
