Westwood beach pacer Celebrating prefers wide open spaces to the confines of the city, which will provide his biggest challenge before tomorrow’s Ascot Park meeting.
The 3yr-old will start on a 1000m track for the first time in his career when he returns to racing for the first time since producing a head-turning win at Wingatui in March.
Celebrating showed his class when a back-straight gallop costing 10 lengths was not enough to stop him going on for a huge maiden victory on grass.
He failed to finish in his previous start at Wyndham.
Trainer Graeme Anderson prepared Celebrating’s half-brother, Terrorway, to win six wins from six starts in New Zealand before the horse went on to win group 1 races in Australia.
The trainer said the pair were strikingly similar.
"Celebrating is just like Terrorway," Anderson said.
"They are horses you just can’t put pressure on early. That is why Terrorway didn’t start racing until he was a 4yr-old on a big track like Cromwell."
Celebrating will stay within his gait when he starts from the unruly for driver Matthew Williamson in race 4.
"It is just going to be how he handles the bends and how awkward he is going to be," Anderson said.
Anderson and Williamson also combine with Da Moons Mission in race 8.
The trainer thinks the race’s 2200m standing start conditions are ideal for the 4yr-old.
"He was going to race last week, but he had a bit of a setback with a foot problem. This looks his race if he does everything right."
Anderson had Wolf West fit and ready to resume when the 5yr-old ran to a 3½ length victory for Williamson at Ascot Park last weekend.
The pacer faces a much different kind of challenge from barrier 1 in race 6 tomorrow.
"If he can hold the front from 1 that would be ideal, because he needs to be out there rolling along."
"He doesn’t have the speed to be coming from behind."
Williamson has opted to drive Wolf West ahead of his rival, Stingray Tara, who ran third at Ascot Park last weekend.
