Victorian trainer Greg Schofield is looking for Nangar Range to be on his best behaviour at the start of the Wagga Gold Cup (525m) on Saturday night.
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Nangar Range is the fastest qualifier for the $10,000-to-the-winner feature and has come up trumps with the barrier draw.
He’s drawn to start from the prized box one, but it’s a position Schofield has some trepidation about.
“We drew the one box in the Temora Cup and he blew the start,” Schofield said.
“I’m hoping he doesn’t do the same thing again.”
In his last foray to the Riverina, Nangar Range equalled the track record in his heat of Temora’s feature before recovering to finish second behind To The Galo’s in the final.
However Nangar Range started well to lead from gate two on Sunday, when defeating Radio Silent by 4.5 lengths, and has a good overall record from the box.
He’s won five of his eight starts from there with another two placings.
Schofield in hoping it will put him in good stead.
“He come out really good on Sunday so I hope he comes out like he did on Saturday,” he said.
“He’s very unpredictable and when I first purchased him I thought he would be better suited out in the eight box, but he’s had about eight starts from the one box for the five wins so the red box certainly doesn’t worry him.”
The Wagga feature a race Schofield found by chance.
He just happened to be watching Sky Channel and heard the race was coming up.
He decided to give it a shot and make his first trip to Wagga in more two decades.
It’s worked out well so far.
“I didn’t even know it was coming up until I was watching Sky Channel and the Wagga greyhounds were on and I heard the Wagga Cup was on the following week,” he said.
“I decided to go down that way.”
Given the late plans, Nangar Range hadn’t seen the track before the heat run.
Schofield was impressed with how he handled the conditions.
“I didn’t have enough time to take him up there to trial so for a dog who hadn't seen the track we went quite good,” he said.
“He seemed to handle the track pretty good.”
Falcon’s Fury looms as his biggest danger.
Schofield is very way of Paul Braddon’s runner plus the Neil Staines-trained Mitra.
“I thought it (Falcon’s Fury) is definitely the one to beat and I thought the two dog (Mitra) was a real good run in the heat,” he said.
“I thought they were definitely the ones to beat and the number eight dog (Little Cindy) is quite well boxed."
