Brungle Bertie is a five-year-old gelding having just his third start and has one pace – pretty slow.
Nature Strip has had 30 starts and 16 careers wins amassing over $8M and has one pace – bloody fast!
The connection between the two horses is owner Peter Balderstone who part-owns Nature Strip and fully owns Brungle Bertie, with the latter destined for a career over the hurdles after notching a grinding win to break his maiden today in the Welcome Back To Mildura Maiden Plate.
It was almost comical as jockey Harry Coffey saw the pace slacken mid-race to the point whereby he pulled Brungle Bertie off heels to force the issue to the leaders, only to find the gelding so one paced that he lost his spot with others pushing up from behind… Harry continues the story…
“You would have seen the middle stages of the race I tried to make a move to get forward as we were going so slow and when I did that they kicked up inside me and I didn’t have the pace to get around them, just because he’s such a one pace horse, but I stayed out there wide and continued to build my momentum and he just out-toughed them late,” recalls Coffey with a wry smile.
“It was a really good effort second-up today, he did it fairly tough in the middle stages of the race and he was the last horse to pull up as I could barely pull him up and he wasn’t blowing much at all, so he is fit and has plenty of stamina.”
Brungle Bertie’s dam Wild Ela was a sister to Brungle Cry who won a Galleywood and Grand National Hurdle. It is this pedigree that will see Henry target the hurdles in the not-to-distant future with Brungle Bertie.
“It was pleasing to get his maiden out of the way today, he did the job well today and I think he is going to be much better over further again,” said Henry.
“He might be slow, but he can sustain it over a long trip and hopefully he proves me right moving forward.
“There’s a high-weight race in Geelong over 2400 metres we will now target in a couple of week’s time, all the while he will be schooled over the hurdles under the watchful eye of Steve Pateman, with all going well heading to a hurdle trial in about six week’s time, which is something to look forward to.
“In the mean time, we will bask in the glory of our Mildura maiden win,” Henry says with a smile.
He might not reach the dizzy heights of the world’s best sprinter in Nature Strip, but Brungle Bertie looks as honest as the day is long and may just follow in his family’s footsteps to future glory over the jumps.