Hanrahan had been central in getting the Construct It Number 2 Syndicate to buy the son of Royal Mattjesty in May last year after he showed some tidy trials and workouts form for Stephen McNally.
It has not been smooth sailing with the gelding since he joined Hanrahan's stable, and the canny trainer was starting to second guess himself.''
I was a wee bit concerned. I thought I might have done the wrong thing at one time,'' Hanrahan said.''
I've had a few problems with him but between Ricky [May, driver] and I, we've tried to put things together and we've come up with something.''
He actually went very well at Rangiora last start so I was a little bit confident today.''
The Construct It Number 2 Syndicate follows on from the Construct It Syndicate which won this time last year with Face The Facts at Nelson.''
It's managed by a fellow in Ashburton called Rodney O'Neill,'' Hanrahan said.''
He's done a great job of getting everyone together. They're a great bunch of fellows to train for.''
This syndicate is a big one - there could be 16-17 in it and a lot of them are first-time owners.''
Invercargill junior driver Craig Ferguson would have been feeling similar emotions to the first-time owners of The Emperor Robyn after he finally got the trotting monkey off his back with Space Ace.
A win behind a squaregaiter had eluded Ferguson in 74 previous drives, but his all-the-way win with Space Ace gave him enough breathing room to give a salute on the line.''
I thought I better give a salute,'' Ferguson said.''
I've had a few placings and that but never really looked likely to win one - there's always been one better.''
Ferguson has won 43 races with pacers and is in his fifth season of junior driving.
Ferguson had been searching for his first trotting winner for a while, but fellow junior driver Jeremy Anderson is forging quite a combination with Ideal Arden.
His front-running drive with the American Ideal gelding was the fourth win for the pair, after they first teamed up for a junior drivers' race at Addington in October 2013.''
I drove him in a junior drivers' [race] and then Jim Curtin couldn't drive him one day at Kaikoura so I drove him there and he won. I've sort of stuck on since then.''
The Bruce Hutton-trained 5yr-old has now won eight races in his 68-start career.
Anderson was grateful to Hutton for sticking with him over the past 14 months.''
Bruce has been really good to me and also the owners so it's all a big help, isn't it?''[Ideal Arden] relaxes really good and he's just a lovely all-round horse. He always tries really hard and he's a super wee horse, really.''
