Lightly raced Victorian speedster Run And Carry has ‘grabbed the ball’ and is heading across Bass Strait.
Trained by Matt Lanigan, first reserve Run And Carry received an ‘11th hour call up’ for tonight’s Group 1 Ladbrokes Hobart Thousand final (461m) after local star Wynburn Lethal (Box 2) was scratched from the $75,000-to-the-winner race.
In an amazing – and hasty – chain of events, Lanigan booked flights to Hobart for himself, partner Emily and baby Noah, his father Gerald, and Run And Carry’s breeder-owner Jarrod Sharp.
And now Lanigan returns to the scene of arguably his biggest triumph. He won the 2016 Hobart Thousand with Zipping Bruiser ($13.50), who was also a finalist the following year.
“I phoned Matty a couple of days ago and he said he hadn’t heard any news of a scratching,” said Sharp, as he waited this afternoon at Melbourne Airport to board his 3.05pm flight. “But he rang me early this morning while I was at work advising there was a ‘whisper’ one of the finalists would be scratched. And not long after he confirmed it via SMS.”
Sharp, who is operations manager at Westlink Container Park in Altona, subsequently rang his boss seeking approval for a hit-and-run trip to Tasmania to watch his sprint star tackle his biggest assignment to date.
“He simply said, ‘go for it’,” Sharp said. “It’s a last-minute thing, but we’ll have plenty of fun.”
However, Sharp played the realist saying, “I don’t think he can beat the ‘pink’ (Tommy Shelby)”. “But he was right on his hammer early in a heat, and now we’ve drawn inside him. He’s got explosive pace but probably hasn’t got the class to beat the likes of Tommy Shelby and Tiggerlong Tonk.
Run And Carry (May ’18 Barcia Bale x Cosmic Owl) – a $17 chance on TAB – has won eight races from only 13 starts and $13,880 in prizemoney.
Sharp said he received his racing moniker from an idiosyncrasy of his nine-year-old son Tyler’s football coach at Newport Power Under 10s.
“When addressing the boys during and after a game, two of his sayings were ‘run and carry’ during a game and ‘drumroll please’ before making post-match presentations. So, I named two of my greyhounds accordingly.”
Sharp bred Run And Carry and has his dam – a household pet affectionately known as “Nellie – at home.
“Run And Carry is out of her first litter and her second litter (2 dogs, 4 bitches), by Mepunga Blazer, are 14 months old,” he said. “And she’s seven weeks in pup with her third litter, by Mepunga Cruzer.”
Victoria now has a three-strong contingent in the Hobart Thousand, with Run And Carry also joined by ‘ultimate professional’ and seven-time G1 finalist Tiggerlong Tonk (Box 5) at $3.40 and ‘silent achiever’ Zevatron (Box 7), a $101 rank outsider.
The Correy Grenfell-trained Tiggerlong Tonk finished fifth to retired champion Hooked On Scotch in last year’s race, while the Paul Abela- trained Zevatron – who was won eight races from 21 starts – is contesting his first G1 final.
The G1 Ladbrokes Hobart Thousand final is Race 8 at 9.49pm.
