David Vandyke hopes to ride winning wave into the spring

[Nergal]

 

DAVID Vandyke is well aware of racing’s fickle nature, so he’s hoping his recent hot streak can extend to Hold The Line at Caloundra on Saturday and deeper into the spring with Miss Quaintly and Asharani.

Vandyke has trained 10 winners from his last 20 runners, but rather than being bullish about the feat, Vandyke is more concerned about when the law of averages will kick in.

“I know we’re having a purple patch at the moment and I will enjoy it while it lasts because we all know that it doesn’t last,” he said. “Sometimes you just go to the races and think ‘what am I doing wrong?’ and it can be very hard to get a winner.

“Then there’s other times where you feel like you could saddle the lead pony and it would be hard to beat. At the moment it makes it easy to get out of bed, it helps to sell a few more horses and keeps the morale up in the stable.

“I’m just hoping it can continue into the spring carnival in Melbourne.”

While he’s been bullish about Miss Quaintly and Asharani, Vandyke has taken a more conservative approach with Hold The Line, who won on debut at Ipswich this month.

“I expect her to run top three, but I think $3.20 is certainly short enough,” he said. “I’m hoping she handles her home track OK. She can be a bit hot when she trials here.

“The form out of the debut is good, with the runner-up having won since (but) this is a difficult race and a good-quality QTIS race.”

Vandyke has given the Your Song filly another trial, where she ran second, since the Ipswich win to keep her up to the mark for Saturday’s race.

He doesn’t subscribe to the theory that Hold The Line was stopping late at Ipswich.

“I think it was more of an optical illusion because the second horse came so quickly,” he said.

“Take the runner-up out and the perception would have been that she’s won the race very easily and was going away from them.”

Miss Quaintly and Asharani are set to have one local start each before embarking on their ambitious Melbourne spring campaigns.

Miss Quaintly has a jumpout on Tuesday before returning to the races on September 12 in a Benchmark 65 midweeker at Caloundra. All going well, she will then head to Melbourne for the Edward Manifold Stakes.

Asharani will run in a three-year-old fillies race on September 8 before going to the Thousand Guineas Prelude at Caulfield.