Success in horse racing is often about good timing. And if that is the case, trainer’s Kylie and Corey Geran are hoping the time is right when they look to pocket a treasured victory with Nikau Spur in Saturday’s TAB Toowoomba Cup at Clifford Park.
Nikau Spur is Queensland’s current in-form middle-distance performer, with three city wins from his past four starts for the Toowoomba mother-and-son training partnership and is expected to start favourite in Saturday’s $125,000 feature.
The seven-year-old Proisir gelding joined the Gerans from the Ciaron Maher and David Eustace stable earlier this year for a large group of owners and has found a new lease of life on the hill in Toowoomba.
“We bought him for $30,000 but never planned on getting him up to distances around 2000 metres,” Corey said. “He was a Kiwi originally and he’d won four races over 1400 to 1600-metres before joining us. But he’s still only lightly raced with 28 starts and he’s going in the right direction at this stage.
“He’s a happy horse at the moment and was bucking his brand off after his last win at Doomben over 2200 metres. He’s taken every step we’ve asked of him so far and Mark Du Plessis was confident he’d get over further after being placed on him at Ipswich in a 1600-metre race before we stepped him up.
“It had been something like 750 days since his previous win before he came to us so he’s really built in confidence with a few wins on the board now.”
Corey and Kylie’s are hoping Nikau Spur can add to the family’s previous Toowoomba Cup successes.
“My aunty Carmel Richardson won a couple of Toowoomba Cups and our family has had a good record in the race,” Corey said. “We are now going into our hometown cup with a real live chance, which is pretty special.”
By Glen McCullough
