Brilliant brothers dominate Dave Brett heats for Cooke

By Isaac Murphy

Robert Cooke has been one of many Northern Rivers trainers waiting to get their dogs to Queensland and thankfully for the Casino trainer everything happened just in time for litter brothers Cash View and Cash Stack who were the star attractions in the Dave Brett Memorial heats at Albion Park on Wednesday.

The prestigious maiden drew five full heats of hopefuls this year with the winners and next fastest three going on to next Thursday’s Final.

Cooke’s Cash View and Cash Stack look like the dogs to beat, and the trainer could not be more rapt to be back at Albion Park.

“I’ve known both of them have been well above average since they came back from break-in, I really wanted to start them off in a 500-metre maiden but with the border restrictions they went in the Pop Northfield and just got no luck over the 400-metre sprint,” he said.

“The positive was they both maintained their maiden status and I knew the Dave Brett was approaching in about a month, they finally let us back in and I slipped them and gave them a post-to-post and was convinced they’d be hard to beat.

“They still had to come out and perform under race conditions, and for them both to win first-up in this race is why we made the trip, maybe they’ve been keeping us out because they knew I had a couple of handy ones.”

Cash View was a well backed commodity in heat two and did the punters a solid, racing away by a growing 10-length margin in the quickest heat time.

“I probably thought Cash View was the better of the two going into today, off his post-to-post I genuinely thought he would come out and run 29.7 first up, but 30.04 time of the day into a strong headwind is a big performance,” he said.

“I was a little concerned about his draw out in box seven; his middle and closing sectionals are very strong, but he’s far from a lid pinger, he ran a nice straight line and once he got around the corner in second I knew it was lengths and margins.

“I would’ve been confident for the Final already but to see him come up with the red makes me give him more of a push, watching today’s heats there was nothing lightning early that can really put a gap On them - he’s strong and will get his chance.”

Cash Stack had to wait until the final heat to match his brother and while he was slower on the clock, coming from ten lengths off the leader to win was some sort of effort.

“Cash Stack didn’t run the time (30.34) but I would say that was a bigger win considering he came out last when he usually flies the lids and had to go about six-wide on the first corner to track the leader down and still be hitting the line was big,” Cooke said.

“He’s been the better box dog of the two but probably hasn’t been as strong, so it was good to see him show some versatility and moving him into the three for the final will definitely help - especially if he jumps.”

The brothers are likely to go up favourites for the Dave Brett Final, but Cooke said nothing was a given pointing, out other serious performances.

“The draws and the heat wins certainly help going into next week’s Final, but I’m convinced you’ll see more than these two handy pups come out of this series - there were some other very good runs today,” he said.

“Connie’s Lass for Greg Stella has trialled in 30.01 here and won nicely today, Countess Rhyme was probably the strongest home for Doug Gladman and Nando Dreamer ran the second fastest heat (30.11).

“I’ll still be making the drive thinking one of mine will win the lot though.

“If they both show out with good runs again, I wouldn’t hesitate to throw them in the Derby heats the following week; they’re short on experience, but I think with luck they can both run competitive time.”