Staying trip expected to suit Kourtney Kardash in today’s Waimate Cup

[Wandering Eyes]

By Jonny Turner 

Trainer-driver Bob Butt thinks Kourtney Kardash is made for the biggest staying test of her career.

The five-year-old will be out to add to her stunning record on grass tracks when she lines up in the Whitestone Livestock Waimate Cup at Oamaru on Sunday (4.19pm). 

With her outstanding grass track stats and her excellent manners in recent standing starts there only looks to be one query for Kourtney Kardash to tick off. 

The mare will step up to race over 3000m for the first time, a distance Butt thinks she should thrive over. 

“She will love it,” the trainer-driver said. 

“She probably lacks an ounce of really high speed but staying is really her go.”

“In her last start she was beaten for speed but she really kept going.”

“Whereas her win before that at Rangiora she got around them early and she kept going, it was a pretty big run that.”

In producing two strong South Island efforts, Kourtney Kardash has continued the excellent form she had produced in the north for her former trainer and owner Shane Butcher.

Her recent southern efforts demonstrate how well she has settled into the Butt stable.

“She is a lovely mare and she has been easy to train,” Butt said. 

“She loves the beach and loves the pool and she seemed to have settled in really well.”

“She’d done a great job before she came down and she is just continuing on her form, really.”

Butt is hopeful High Step can get her manners back in check in Sunday’s feature trot, the Interpaint Fillies and Mares Handicap Trot (5.23pm) after missing away in her last two starts.

“It is a shame because she has been such a good beginner.”

“Two starts ago at Addington it wasn’t her fault, but then last start she was a bit fresh around at the start and got it wrong.”

“She has been working well and she would be a good chance if she is able to get away on Sunday.”

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