TEN years after combining to win the Wagga Gold Cup on Voice Commander, Canberra trainer Nick Olive and Sydney jockey Kathy O'Hara will come together in a bid to win the race for a second time.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Olive will be sticking to a proven formula when he saddles up Maid Of Ore in Friday's $200,000 Wagga Gold Cup (2000m).
Olive's apprentice at the time, Billy Owen, steered Voice Commander to a Gundagai Cup win in 2011, before O'Hara jumped aboard to guide the horse to Wagga Gold Cup success a couple of weeks later.
Owen was again in the saddle for Olive when he guided Maid Of Ore to victory at Gundagai last month. Again, Olive has called upon the services of O'Hara to get the job done on Wagga Gold Cup day.
"Voice Commander won the Gundagai Cup and went on to win the Wagga Cup so I'm hoping we can do the same thing," Olive recalled.
"Billy rode them both in the Gundagai Cup, and Kathy rode Voice Commander and hopefully she can jump on this and win too."
Maid Of Ore toughed out an on-speed win at Gundagai and then went to Randwick last start on Anzac Day and finished a close-up fourth over 1800m.
Olive is happy with the mare heading into her Gold Cup assignment.
"Really happy with her. I think she's going great," he said.
"She obviously had that great time a couple of years ago where she was really competitive but she's older now. I think her last two runs have been excellent. She's probably had excuses for a couple of runs before that too.
"I feel she's going really well and drawing one is a big plus for her on Friday."
MORE SPORT NEWS
Maid Of Ore enjoyed a hot streak of four successive wins back in 2019. It kicked off with a win at Wagga over a mile and ended with a Saturday win at Randwick over 2000m.
Olive does not necessarily believe Maid Of Ore, a $13 chance, is back in that kind of form but expects her to be very competitive.
"She's getting close to it, but I don't think she's quite back to that because she's older and so forth. I feel she's definitely somewhere near back to that," he said.
"I'm hoping she can run top five. If she gets the right run on the day you just never know do you? I think she's a genuine top five chance, hopefully she could go on and win it but I feel she's a chance of running top five for sure."
Olive will have two other runners on Cup day. Sly Song early in the day followed by Temoin Chaud in the Queen Of The South.
Owen will ride Temoin Chaud, who has 61.5 kilograms, and Olive expects her to be right in the finish.
"I think she'll go really well," he said.
"She's a tough horse, she'll race up on pace. She had some excuses for her last start and her two runs before that she won obviously.
"I feel like she's back to her best so I expect her to race really well although it is a good race that. There's a lot of good horses in it. It's probably going to come down to who gets the best run."
Temoin Chaud is an $8.00 chance with TAB.
Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
- Bookmark dailyadvertiser.com.au
- Follow us on Twitter
- Follow us on Instagram
- Follow us on Google News
- Make sure you are signed up for our breaking and regular headlines newsletters