Canberra trainer Matthew Dale thrilled the original connections have got to experience the Kosciuszko campaign

Man Of Peace will head to Saturday's $1.3 million Kosciuszko as a $13 chance for Riverina owners Cath Heywood, Bern Milne, Mick Mullins and Ray and Therese Burt.

Man Of Peace was bred by the group and did the majority of his early racing with Wagga trainer Dave Heywood before being sold to Dale two years ago.

The horse has gone on to win six Saturday metropolitan races in that time, earning him a spot in the lucrative feature for country-trained sprinters at Randwick.

While connections of Dale purchased the majority ownership, he is thrilled the original connections have stayed in and enjoyed the ride.

"Absolutely, that's one of the best things about the whole story is that when we brought the horse that we said do you guys want to stay in," Dale said.

"We said you've gone on such a journey this far, do you want to stay in and they decided to stay in and reduce their share, so to speak, which I'm so glad that's the way it occurred.

"Dave just loves the horse and loves seeing him do well. He's coming up on Friday night, we're meeting up in Coogee for a dinner Friday night.

"It should be a good weekend. It's great to be involved and to have a horse like that, you just wouldn't have thought or seen that coming, Man Of Peace could have been that horse."

Dale admits Man Of Peace has exceeded his expectations.

"Absolutely, he arrived in really good order from Davey and he had been well looked after," he said.

"We were able to place him and build his confidence up and to win six Saturday races in Sydney is very hard to do and to be able to do that late in his life as a seven and eight-year-old is a really good effort.

"We were thinking, we said he might be able to win a midweek or two and we have a ready-made starter in a Snake Gully Cup and Wagga Town Plate, this sort of horse. No way did we think he'd be winning six Saturday races, he's well and truly exceeded expectations there without a doubt."

Man Of Peace has not raced since August 15 when winning over 1400 metres on a heavy track at Randwick. He stepped out for a trial win at Goulburn on September 25 in preparation for Saturday.

Dale is happy with the eight-year-old heading into the feature.

"We deliberately haven't run him on the back of three wins because his rating got so high that he would have had to run effectively against the Everest horses in the lead ups and I just didn't want to dent his confidence," he said.

"He'd had a really solid preparation through the winter and good residual fitness so he just spent a bit of time down at our Moruya base, waiting on the Moruya river, then he's had that trial a couple of weeks ago and he's ready to go fresh."

Man Of Peace has led in most of his wins and Dale expects apprentice Louise Day to take the horse to his usual position up on the pace.

"Yeah, I've seen the barrier draw now but I haven't gone right through it from a speed map point of view but he'll roll heavily forward," he said.

"We've got him fresh and he likes to roll, effectively flat out, the whole way. That's what he's been doing in Sydney and we won't be changing that now."

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