News
Country Championships Bid Back On Script

Trainer Matt Dunn can only hope things are finally going to script with talented mare Scripted as she looks to force her way into the $1m Evergreen Turf Country Championships Final via Scone on Friday.
Trainer Matthew Dunn (Pic: Bradley Photos)
She was due to contest the Northern Rivers qualifying race last month but had to be scratched and Dunn had to take a different path which has brought her to the $150,000 Northern Wild Card (1400m) for her last chance to make it to Randwick.
Dunn, who already has Considered in the Final, said a favourable draw can allow Scripted to run up to the view he has of her – that she’s capable of winning the big one.
“It’s good to see her draw a gate because she doesn’t need to be back,’’ he said.
“She has early speed if we want to use it particularly at 1400m but we haven’t been able to because she doesn’t have enough speed to go forward and overcome a wide gate.
“From an inside barrier she’ll be sweet and take up a spot in the first half.
“She travelled to Scone on Sunday and settled in well pretty good. She did her last piece of work at home on Saturday and worked great, and she’s drawn a decent gate for once in her life. That’s something.”
Tommy Berry makes the trip to Scone to ride Scripted, $3.10 with TAB on Wednesday, with a view to taking the ride if she progresses to the Final.
It’s been a month since her last run, which Dunn describes as a “train wreck”, where she ran third at Doomben over 1200m as a short priced favourite.
“We were back in the field three deep and circled them from the 800m which is suicide at Doomben,’’ he said.
“We ended up in an unfortunate position where we were going to get in but we didn’t. They didn’t go fast and (jockey Martin Harley) had to something.
“If he sits there and waits and the runs don’t come he looks like an idiot or he can take off which he did and she peaked on her run.”
The four-year-old is on the fourth line of betting for the Final at $8 with TAB and the Northern Wild Card also features the current favourite Clear Thinking ($3.50) who was unplaced first-up at Muswellbrook earlier in the month.
“I think she is stakes grade and that’s probably the level of horse you need to win the race,’’ Dunn said.
“We have to take on some local horses that go very well and haven’t had to travel but hopefully she can get it done for us.”
Meanwhile, Considered will be chasing seven wins on end when she lines up in the Country Championships Final following a win that impressed Dunn last weekend in Brisbane.
The mare, who won the Northern Rivers Championships at Coffs Harbour, will likely be ridden by Nash Rawiller in the Final and Dunn said he’d head there supremely confident if a wet track presents.
Scripted runs third at Doomben on February 21
“She was really good last start, it was always a bit of a risk that she might have got to a point where coming back in trip deep into a prep was against her,’’ he said.
“She didn’t travel for the first 600m of the race but at the pointy end she put them away so quickly.”