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The form of Neil Godbolt’s Get On The Grange looks mixed on paper but he’ll be one of the better chances in the $45,000 XXXX Gold Lismore Cup on Thursday.
The six-year-old won at Taree four starts back over 1624 metres and has since finished fifth in the Taree Cup, seventh in the Wyong Cup and sixth in a Broadmeadow Mile.
But at all three starts he was only beaten 2.2, 2.9 and 4.1 lengths after overcoming difficulties in running.
Godbolt said he’ll get his chance to make amends over the 2100 metres of the Lismore feature race then may head to metropolitan races.
“I’d expect him to be very competitive in this race,” Godbolt said.
“The Wyong Cup was a stronger form race than this and he was only beaten 2.9 lengths and had no luck.”
The problem of late, surprisingly, for the veteran of 28 career starts, has been his lacklustre efforts out of the barriers.
Godbolt said the poor starts almost cost his horse a chance of heading to the Lismore Cup.
“He’s been running very well, but he’s just been missing the start in his past few races,” he said.
“I can’t see a reason for it. I put him in the barriers this morning and he flew out as well as any horse you’d see.
“If he hadn’t, we might not have been going to Lismore. It wouldn’t have been worth it, to drive for five hours only to see him miss the start again.”
Get On The Grange will have to contend with Jeremy Sylvester’s two highest rating horses of the race, Collar and Plutorius, but Sylvester thinks it will be harder for Collar to dominate the Lismore Cup like he did when winning the Ballina Cup on September 10.
“This is a much harder race than the Ballina Cup,” Sylvester said.