The New Zealand trainer, flanked by his wife/co-trainer Chrissie and son/driver Carter, seeks more glory in Group 1 Hunter Cup.

by Adam Hamilton

Decorated Kiwi trainer Cran Dalgety is loving his second coming.

Dalgety, a key force in New Zealand for three decades, credits the stunning emergence of his son — top young driver Carter — with “stirring the fire in his belly” again to be a player at the pointy end of harness racing Down Under.

Carter, 22, recently spent almost two months in the U.S. and still returned to New Zealand to win the country’s leading junior driver crown. Around the same time, he won his second and third Group 1 races aboard the family’s current stable star, Republican Party, in the Invercargill and Auckland Cups.

And it is Republican Party who has united the family on another overseas adventure to chase the Group 1 Hunter Cup, one of Australia’s iconic races, at Melton on Saturday (Feb. 1).

“This trip feels really special,” Cran said. “As you get older, you certainly appreciate things more and for us as a family to share the recent success we’ve had and to take a top horse back to Victoria, it’s something else.

“Chrissie [my wife] and I train in a partnership and now we’ve got Carter doing such a great job as the stable driver. We were thrilled Carter chose to give harness racing a go, but we’re extra fortunate he’s doing so well and having so much success at it. It’d be tricky if that wasn’t the case.

“Sport is a cruel thing in many ways because you can’t stop the clock and age takes over when the young brigade comes through, but Chrissie and I can be part of that now with Carter.”

Cran can see the synergy in the timing of this year’s Hunter Cup tilt.

“I was pretty much the same age as Carter when I took my first good horse to Melbourne and Desperate Comment won two Victoria Cups for us,” he said. “Now we’re coming back as a family to try and win another of [Victoria’s big ones].

“Desperate Comment really kick-started my career and I’ve been lucky to have quite a few nice horses follow since him, but he opened my eyes to the great things about travelling with horses… the amazing people you meet, the things you learn and the satisfaction you get from winning away from home. He’ll always be a special horse.”

But Cran rates Christen Me as the best horse he’s trained. It’s a horse that long-time employee and close friend, Dexter Dunn, shared so much success throughout Australia and NZ.

“He was something else,” Cran said. “He made dreams come true. Growing up, I’d always dreamed of winning a Miracle Mile and Hunter Cup. He won them both.

“Christen Me won 14 Group 1 races, but none before he turned 4, so he won them the hard way in top quality and taxing open-class races. He won about $2.5 million for us.”

The story has been told how later in life Christen Me raced in the U.S. and Dunn’s connection with him was so deep he bought him out of a claiming race for $30,000 (U.S.) to ensure he would always have a good home.

“Just this year, Christen Me led out the Little Brown Jug field with John Campbell driving him,” Cran said. “That really gave the ‘warm and fuzzies,’ our wee guy from New Zealand leading out a race like that with my idol in the sulky.”

In and around the success of Desperate Comment and Christen Me, Cran has come to Melbourne and won five Breeders Crown finals, another Victoria Cup with Bettors Strike in 2009 and a string of other feature races.

“But it’s been a while between drinks, so I’m due,” he said with a laugh.

The last “mega” Melbourne win came when Christen Me won the 2014 Hunter Cup.

“Carter was just a kid starting to get interested in it all and with stars in his eyes for Dexter [Dunn], who was working with us at the time,” Cran said. “They obviously became great mates and Dexter has been such a massive influence on Carter’s career, as recently as the time he had in the U.S. last year.

“Chrissie and I would love to have gone over for that, but we purposefully didn’t so we could cut the umbilical cord, so to speak. We wanted Carter to have to do everything for himself and knew he’d learn a lot and mature for it.

“I think the success he’s had since returning home shows it certainly helped.”

So, is the 22-year-old Carter destined to follow in Dunn’s shoes and make the U.S. home?

“Maybe, quite possibly, but not for a while and that could be quite a while,” Cran said. “We were lucky enough to get Carter a couple of days with John Campbell when he was there last year and he’s really taken onboard something John told him.

“That’s to build a big CV at home and then hit the ground running when and if you try to make a go of it [in the U.S.]. I guess the model is Toddy McCarthy. He was a young star, who’d done so much in Aussie, before he hit the U.S.

“So, for now, Carter is all about knuckling down here, chasing big races and trying to turn a junior premiership into the most success he can have.”

That paves the way for a few big years for “Team Dalgety,” which races under the Kentuckiana Lodge moniker.

“I think we’ve got a lot to offer with the older established trainers in Chrissie and I, along with the young driver, who’s making a real fist of it,” Cran said. “I think we’ve opened ourselves to a broader market and hopefully that translates to the success we’re aiming for.”

Carter is walking marketing material for the clan. He just “gets it” and connects superbly with a young audience.

“He’s been taught since day one to smile at everyone and be happy,” Cran said. “Give your time to others and stay humble.”

Team Dalgety opened their Melbourne assault with Republican Party’s third-place in last Saturday night’s Casey Classic at Melton. It was a pipe-opener for tomorrow night’s Hunter Cup, where Republican Party drew the coveted barrier one.

“He’s ready for this trip now,” Cran said. “Through most of his career he’s been 5 per cent below the big dogs, but he’s gone to a new level in the past months, which we always hoped we would, but you can never bank on it.

“We campaigned him in Sydney as a 3-year-old and he came home better for it and he’s had this part full year in open-class, which has really toughened him up, too.

“He had that big third in the New Zealand Cup and has gone on to win the Group 1’s at Invercargill and Auckland. It was Auckland, where he really had to lift at a crunch stage to beat Merlin, which really sold us on this trip.

“That said, yes, he’s shown he’s up with the best Kiwis, but those two top Aussies, Leap To Fame and Swayzee, are another level up again. Thankfully we won’t have Swayzee to worry about in the Hunter Cup and I’ve always taken the approach you never dodge a race because of just one top horse because anything can go wrong on the night.

“It’ll be wonderful to get across as a family and bloody fantastic to catch-up with so many of the great people I’ve met across there over the years.

“And I really think we’ve got a horse who can be very competitive, too.”