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Trainer Dar Lunn sees it as something of a coup to secure Tommy Berry to ride one of his duo in Sunday’s Newhaven Park WRA Country Championships (1400m) at Coonamble.

Berry partners Elson Boy in the $150,000 race and while he'll naturally be relatively unfamiliar with the gelding, Dar Lunn doesn't see the need for a long instructional conversation with the leading Sydney hoop.

He says since they've worked out Elson Boy is a front-runner that's the only way to ride him.

"It was a bit of a scoop to get him, I thought he'd already have a ride,'' Lunn said.

"He's not a hard horse to ride, you've just got to bounce him out and put him there and rate him. I'll just say to Tommy 'just go forward on him and whatever happens happens'.

"He's been carrying big weights and he's dropping to 57kg being a Class 4 horse."

Elson Boy came to Lunn unraced from Mark Newnham and he didn't break through for his first win, or placing, until his tenth race start. He's now won four from 17.

Lunn puts some of that down to immaturity but most of it to tactics. He's only led six times in his life for four wins and a second.

He posted his fourth win since that change of pattern at Dubbo last Friday, handing apprentice Shannen Llewellyn her first career success.

"I think we might have been riding him wrong, keeping him back in behind and trying to get him to finish off. That never suited him,'' Lunn said.

"We changed tack and put a set of blinkers on him, made him go forward and that worked."

The Dubbo trainer has had a taste of the Country Championships Final before, he prepared 200/1 shot Not For Export to run third in the race back in 2017.

Pants On Fire also represents Lunn at Coonamble and, like her stablemate, couldn't be going into the race in better form having won five of her last nine starts.

While Brett Robb's Gallant Star looms large over the race, he's on the third line of betting at $11 to win the Final, Lunn said he knows his pair will give themselves every chance.

"They barrier trialled the same day at Wellington and we had this race in mind all the time. Everything has gone to plan,'' he said.

"You don't come across $150,000 races on your doorstep every day of the year and it's good when it's only your area.

"Coonamble can be a front runner's track and they are going to put themselves up there.

"I'd say Elson Boy will lead, and coming to the corner they'll be there. There's not much between the pair of them at the moment."

A shock failure at Dubbo on February 18 would be the only glitch in Pants On Fire's preparation but she bounced back with a game win at Bathurst 11 days later.

Lunn said the five-year-old was possibly given too long between runs going into the Dubbo race but that won't be an issue come Sunday.

"The 34 days in between starts and I think she might have got back a bit too far,'' he said.

"She over raced in the middle stages and then only let down for 50 yards. That's all I can put it down to, being a bit fresh and over racing."