ANDREW Dale has collected the biggest win of his career with Lauturo taking out the NSW Country Championships Southern Districts qualifier.
Lautaro booked his place in the $400,000 Country Championships final at Randwick next month, pipping his opposition on day one of the Albury Gold Cup Carnival.
Dale said it was a huge achievement to have a runner in such a prestigious race, on the same day as the Australian Derby and Doncaster Mile.
“For country trainers to have something like the Championships to aspire to and to have a runner there on one of the biggest days of the racing calendar is pretty amazing,” Dale said.
“It gives us all the chance to dream big.
“The build up to Sunday was pretty much 12 months in planning so for it to all come off like it did was just incredible.”
Despite being considered an outside chance to win over 1400m, Dale said he was quietly confident of a good showing from the five year-old.
“His preparation was fantastic and we knew on Tuesday after his track work against Lord Von Costa that he was going to run a super race,” Dale said.
“He is a horse who gets over ground but he can really sprint well fresh and we where confident the 1400m would suit him first up.
“He ran a really good fourth or fifth at Wodonga first up last campaign which gave us confidence too.
“Wodonga is a really tight turning track so going to the larger Albury circuit, being a big striding horse with a big action we knew he would be better off.”
After adding the SDRA championships qualifier to last week’s Towong Cup Dale said it was great for connections of the Andrew Dale Racing stable to see more success.
“For people like Stephen Spiteri who has shares in Lautaro and other horses of ours and a real vested interest in what we’re doing and trying to achieve is a nice reward,” Dale said.
“Things are looking really good for us at the moment; we’re getting on top of our training, all our horses are in good form and running well so hopefully we can only build on this momentum.”
