Cup candidates due to arrive today

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33063, 2 November 1972, Page 8

Cup candidates due to arrive today

Kartika and Dyak, the only two horses in the New Zealand Cup field with winning form at two miles, will be flown to Christchurch from the North Island today. Kartika’s Hawera trainer, B. Deacon, was hoping for an airlift of horses from Palmerston North, but most Central Districts trainers arranged to travel by sea. Deacon now plans to float Ills good stayer to Wellington and continue the Journey by air from there. Deacon does not wish ill luck on the Canterbury Jockey Club, but he is hoping for a rainaffected track for his Wellington Handicap winner. “Kartika races best with the fire out of the track,” Deacon

told “The Press” yesterday. “If the going is firm, Kartika will run in rubber-lined plates." Kartika went under by a nose to Dyak over two miles at Trentham last March. But she was an easy winner at that distance in the Waikato Stayers’ Plate in February.

Dyak has so far failed to recapture liis best form of last season, but Kartika’s two wins last month have raised hopes for the first victory by a Haweratrained stayer since 1960, Oreka’s year.

Tlie Cup will be Kartika’s only race at the Riccarton carnival. It is planned to send her back north on Monday, but her Cup rider, the apprentice, J. Walker, may remain for the second day of the C.J.C. meeting next Wednesday.