Ayres adamant there’s nothing lucky about Lance

By Isaac Murphy

There was more than one surprise result in last week’s Listed Brisbane Young Guns heats, but it was Lucky Lance for Glasshouse Mountains trainer Robert Ayres who got the ball rolling, scoring a noteworthy 30.06 three-length win first look at the Albion Park 500 metres.

The son of Barcia Bale had punters scrambling for the form guides to see what they’d missed, but they could be forgiven in a race that included established stars Extra Malt and Pokie Payout.

“I was doing my best to hide it, but I was pretty damn excited after the win; the Brisbane Young Guns is a serious race which we’ve given ourselves a chance to win, but dogs like Orchestrate and Nando Dreamer who ran in the 29.7 range are going to be hard to catch in the Final,” he said.

“We’ve got nothing to lose though, it’s great going in with that underdog mentality, even though it’s a Young Guns we’re the new kid on the block experience wise.

“I’m really confident of another big performance, he ran 30.06 first look at the 500 at Albion, in time I think he’ll shave a half-second off that.

“Can he do it this week is the question, probably not, but I’d be very surprised if he didn’t run in the money.”

Ayres had seen enough in the dog’s brief career to know that he was going to be a shot in his heat and made sure he cashed in.

“You can never be sure what they’re going to do first time out of a new set of boxes, but he’d shown us he had good early pace and could run out the distance, so I made sure I had something on at the $18,” Ayres laughed.

“Once he took the gap on the inside down the back, he didn’t look like losing and even though he’s had a short career, he’s always learnt something new which’ll help him second time around in the Final.

“I’m not afraid to say he’s the fastest dog I’ve trained, Boscono has been a super bitch for me over the years, but as far as potential goes this guy is through the roof.”

Ayres doesn’t boast a huge kennel, making it all the more important to have an eye for talent, and he certainly got it right purchasing Lucky Lance.

“Andy Lord was training the dog, he’d had one start from them and was on the market for the right price, so myself and my mate down in Victoria Gavin Kirk were looking for a nice young pup, and we snapped him up,” he said.

“We were big fans of the breeding (Barcia Bale/Nana Road), but you’re still taking a leap of faith buying dogs, and luckily for us everything Andy told us about him was spot on.

“He said the dog had been doing similar things to Bandit Ned at home who’s won five of his first six and over $50,000 in earnings, and Lucky Lance was giving him a run for his money.”

We weren’t sure exactly what type of dog he was going to be when he came to us, but we’ve let him tell us what he’s ready for.

“He’d only been running over the short course when I got him, so Andy suggested we start him off with a sprint which we did over the 331 at Albion Park,” the tainer said.

“He went ok finishing fourth, but it became evident pretty quickly he wanted further.

“We saw a maiden heat and final on at Lismore and thought that’d be a sightly easier place to start his 500-metre career, he finished second in the heat and won the Final.

“We’d been told he’d done a lot of work up the straight, so we threw him in the Capalaba Young Guns next not really knowing what he was capable of, he shocked a lot of people winning his heat and even though he got squeezed up in the Final, it’s good to know we can freshen him up at Capalaba between circle runs.”