Craig Kerry
Rookie Eagle Farm trainer Todd Pollard is confident All Kinds Of Folk can add to his emerging stable’s flying start when he brings his first runners to Randwick on Saturday.
The 32-year-old New Zealander opened his own operation in March and has already tasted stakes-level success with Midnight In Tokyo (Hinkler Handicap) and Zuleika (Tattersall’s Gold Crown) among his nine winners.
Now with 20 horses in work, Pollard was excited to have All Kinds Of Folk (race five) and Chassagne (eight) going to Sydney, where he spent 18 months as Annabel Archibald’s assistant trainer before helping establish and run her Queensland satellite stable.
“I’ve always wanted to train and I’ve built my CV towards doing that,” said Pollard, who started working with horses after school at age 12 in Matamata.
“It was always a matter of when, and I’ve been pretty patient. It’s been a long time coming, but I wanted to make sure everything was lined up to give it a good crack because it’s not an easy game to do well in.
“It’s exciting to send horses to Sydney and test the waters. Hopefully we’ll have some nicer horses to come down for the better races in time as well.”
All Kinds Of Folk ($4.40) shapes as a strong chance in the 1800m benchmark 78 handicap for three and four-year-olds after a luckless second last start at Doomben over 1650m. The mare easily won her only start on heavy ground, when on debut for Pollard, and the trainer was keen to find the same conditions. Randwick was a heavy 9 on Thursday with more rain expected before a likely clear race day.
“I’m over the moon with how she’s going,” Pollard said.
“It’s been somewhat of a frustrating preparation. She kicked off over 1400 and won convincingly, but was probably helped by rain on the day.
“Second up she drew wide and went back towards the tail of the field, and they didn’t make any ground in that race. We backed her up the next week, and she ran well but had lost a bit of zip out of her legs.
“She was freshened for her last run and she was by far the unluckiest in the race. She got behind a few a slow ones, got dragged back through the field, then flew home late. She was a good thing beaten.
“She’s got a good draw, a light weight and it’s a race she should be competitive in, so it’s exciting.”
Chassagne ($34), which came from Annabel and Rob Archibalds’ Queensland stable, is resuming from a seven-month spell.
“She’s a horse that certainly needs a wet track and we’re not going to get that here [Brisbane],” he said.
“We want to kick off her campaign, and she’ll want further, but hopefully there’s more rain and if it stays on the worst part of a soft track, that’s ideal.
“She’s probably not going down as a winning chance, but she’s run well previously first up at a mile.”
He said Midnight In Tokyo was likely to race again before going to the broodmare barn, while Zuleika would be set for summer races.
