Flemington debut for former German horse

Co-trainer Tom Dabernig is looking forward to the Australian debut of German horse Poetic Dream.

The Lindsay Park team is eager to see what imported galloper Poetic Dream can do in his Australian debut.

The lightly-raced Irish-bred four-year-old, who has done all his previous racing in Germany, runs in the Group Three Autumn Handicap (1400m) at Flemington on Saturday.

Co-trainer Tom Dabernig says Poetic Dream is an exciting prospect and punters have warmed to him with the horse firming from $3.50 to $3.10 favouritism since acceptances on Wednesday.

“He looks pretty classy on what we’ve seen,” Dabernig said.

“We took him to Flemington for a jump-out and rode him quiet and he showed a good turn of foot and then he went to Werribee and we experimented with a set of blinkers.

“He jumped and bolted in. We’re not going to run him in the blinkers. We’re going to keep them up our sleeve for some point further down the track.

“On what I’ve seen of him I think he’ll be pretty hard to beat, but certainly Saturday’s no grand final for him.

Dabernig said Poetic Dream was bought with a spring campaign in mind.

While a number of other imported gallopers have come to the stable with Cups campaigns in mind, Dabernig said Poetic Dream’s best distance was likely to be between 1600m and 2000m.

“He’s a well balanced horse, a beautiful type and seems to do everything pretty easy,” Dabernig said.

“He’s acclimatised well, even though he hasn’t been here a long time.

“During the summer you can see them struggle a bit but for him it seems like water off a duck’s back.”

Lindsay Park will also be represented by Cool Chap in Saturday’s race.

Cool Chap will be commencing his second campaign with the stable and Dabernig is expecting a cheeky run.

“We’re getting to know him a bit better now that we’ve had him for a full racing prep,” Dabernig said.

“He’s got a funny racing style. You’ve got to let him find his feet out of the gates and he runs on well, but when you attempt to ride him forward it doesn’t work.

“He’ll run well fresh.”

Cool Chap is rated a $14 chance.