Anything Goes is booked to fly to Australia at the weekend after being sold to patrons of the Rossmore New South Wales stable of Kevin Pizzuto.
The American Ideal gelding won 8 of his 23 starts in New Zealand and in the first four in 17 of them but had not been progessing quite as hoped this spring. He was raced here by Mark Hanover,Gordon Banks and Ken Jacobs, from North America but big investors in Australasian harnees racing. They purchased him last year from owner-trainer Steve Dolan who exercised patience with the big rangy youngster and was rewarded with a win in the Superstar Final at Addington last April and earned an appropriate price.
He won an Uncut Gems Final first up for Purdon Racing and given the potential for improvement a start in the New Zealand Cup last year was not ruled out.
However robustness did not prove the big horse’s strongest point and after a number of placings in the spring after Kaikoura he was put aside and a fresh start made this year with the Cup in mind.However minor setbacks restricted his progress to one start last month.
“He always showed us plenty in his work but he had little setbacks and just wasn’t able to mount a lengthy campaign at that level ” Nathan said
Kevin Pizzuto could be the man to change all that. He has done it before though from firmer ground.He bought Tiger Tara after he was placed twice to Lazarus in Cup week 2016 and raised the bar a lot further into champion status with wins in the Victoria Cup,Hunter Cup and Inter Dominion Grand Final across the TasmanHe twice brought Tiger Tara back to Addington but though he was gallant the Cup still eluded Pizzuto.
Pizzuto has had other successes changing the routines of former Kiwi pacers and will be confident he can repeat the feat with Anything Goes .
After some time out of the limelight Kevin was back to win the Treuer Memorial in 2022 .He is also handling former Purdon-trained three year old Australian -bred trotter We Can Have It All who has raced in the same interests as Anything Goes.
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