Crocodile Cod to target Tumut Cup after strong Adelong win

Despite missing the start and being forced to do plenty of work early out wide as a result, the five-year-old ($6) dug deep in the dying stages to hold out David Blundell's well-credentialed Thistledo ($4) by just under half a length.

Coming off a quick back-up from an encouraging second at Tumut's Boxing Day meeting, Crocodile Cod was fractious before the 1400m race in hot conditions.

He generally likes to lead in races or be somewhere near the speed, but his poor start forced jockey Kayla Nisbet to work him hard early to get to the outside of leader Thistledo.

When challenged, he found enough to secure a second win this preparation in the $13,000 feature. He also has two places in five runs this preparation, and Weir said keeping him down in distance has worked a treat.

He will likely run in the Tumut Mile on the club's TAB meeting in a couple of weeks' time, before targeting the 1400m Tumut Cup in early February.

"I'm not aiming too high with him, he might be my Tumut Cup horse," Weir said.

He'll probably have one more run before then, there's a new race on our TAB meeting called the Tumut Mile.

"I've only won it once, your home town cups are sometimes the hardest ones to win.

"He's an on pacer and he loves the track. We put him up to 2000 last time and it was too much, this prep we've kept him over shorter distances and it seems to be working.

- He was actually slow out, he usually leads and he missed the start. Kayla had to dig him up and probably took about 400m to get to the outside of Thistledo, who led.

"She was bout half a length off him until they straightened, and it was quite a good battle between them down the straight.

"The other horse is a good horse, he's been going around in Benchmark 66's, while ours has been in Benchmark 55's and non-TAB meetings. It was a tough win, which was good.

"He was on a quick six day back up too and they ran a bit of time, which was pleasing.

"At the 100 metre mark I thought the work he had to do early would tell, but to the horse's credit he stuck his head out and had a bit of dig."

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