Pride looks for early invitation to go dancing with Redwood Shadow

There’s something to be said for striking while the iron’s hot, and trainer Joe Pride is hoping in-form galloper Redwood Shadow can book a Big Dance berth for 2023 through Sunday’s $65,000 TAB Nowra Cup (1600m).

The second running of the $2million feature at Randwick is 11 months away, but Pride said he suspected that the gelding was still some time away from hitting his ceiling, so being qualified early for a race like the Big Dance, or its consolation the $500,000 Little Dance, has some appeal.

“They are good prizemoney races, and I think next preparation he’ll be better again and maybe up to that grade,” Pride said. “If we get him qualified now it saves the rush for next year.”

It will be Redwood Shadow’s eighth start since mid-July in his first preparation for Pride, and the trainer believes his winning form has coincided with the disappearance of heavy tracks in the past six weeks or so.

His first three runs for Pride were on heavy tracks and he finished third in each. Pride said he has learned to space the horse’s runs, and the Nowra Cup comes up three weeks after his success in the last race at Newcastle’s The Hunter meeting on November 12.

“He hasn’t really done anything wrong in the time he’s been here,” he said. “He took a little while to break through but we might put that down to the really wet tracks he ran on; I think they were hampering him for a while.”

Redwood Shadow is early favourite for the Nowra Cup, and that tells Pride that he has found the right progression after taking out benchmark 72 and 78 races at his past two starts.

Tyler Schiller has the ride at Nowra and, although they have drawn out, Pride hopes the speed on paper materialises.