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A future gear addition will see Big Dreamer fully realise her potential, according to trainer Paul Mirabelli.
The four-year-old has fashioned the tidy record to date of two wins and six placings, including a fourth in last season’s Listed Soliloquy Stakes, with the promise of much more to come.
“She’s got the attributes you don’t always see in thoroughbreds – a low heart rate and a stride bigger than most and she’ll be even better with blinkers on,” Mirabelli said.“I’m looking forward to putting the hood on her, but she’s not quite ready for that yet. She needs a bit more experience.”
Big Dreamer has won two of her last three starts and she will bid for further success in the Gartshore Construction 1600 at Tauranga on Friday.“She’s quite headstrong and she likes things her own way,” Mirabelli said. “Vinnie (Colgan) is quite a key to her. He’s got beautiful hands and she runs really well for him.”
The Cambridge horseman is also expecting a strong performance from Big Dreamer’s stablemate Hannah Mary in the Gr.3 Lochinver Station Plate at Rotorua on Saturday.The mare may have only won three races, but she is already proven at stakes level.
“Everyone under-estimates her,” Mirabelli said. “She’s run fourth in a Counties Bowl, fifth in the Newmarket and third in a Darley Plate. People seem to dismiss her time and time again.”Hannah Mary was a close fourth when resuming in an open handicap at Ruakaka and Mirabelli believes that may give her an edge on a number of her fresher rivals.
“Especially from the one gate – she’s another temperamental mare and she likes to have everything her way and she should get it from there,” he said.