Two weeks ago, the nine-year-old grabbed his 12th career win by taking out the Wean Picnic Cup (1600m).

 Trainer Martin Fernando wasn’t trackside to witness that victory due to illness, so sent his son Doug and partner Samantha Russell, who race the gelding in partnership, to Wean instead.

“Dad hasn’t indicated yet whether he’ll be coming,” Doug Fernando  said yesterday.

Dandy Kat (Daniel Northey) will be looking to claim his 13th win today and his owners are quietly confident of his chances, despite it being a tad shorter than his pet mile (1600m) distance.

“He’s working really well, and is showing us he still wants to be competitive despite getting on,” Fernando said.

“He normally sits back and comes home, but at Wean he jumped and just wanted to race.

“Now he’s older, it could be that he just wants to race up on the pace.

“He’s a good old horse who likes hard ground. 

“And the long straight will suit too.”

Dandy Kat bounced back from being “a bit disappointing in the Golden Triangle” (picnic cups at Moree, Mallawa and Talmoi), to breezing home in the recent Wean feature.

“He showed us that he’s still got it. If he can get himself in the right place, he’ll go all right,” Fernando said.

The Fernando-Russell team hasn’t pinpointed Dandy Kat’s next start – ideally it would be over a mile at home (Moree) according to his young owner.

“But there aren’t too many of them around. When you’ve got a mile horse, it gets hard to find suitable races, especially around home.”

Dandy Kat will be Martin Fernando’s only starter at Carinda today. 

But also representing the region will be Gunnedah trainer Gavin Groth, Tamworth’s Kevin Dixon and Moree trainer Neville McCarthy.

Groth will saddle up stablemates Rusiri (1400m class one handicap), Darkness and Macho Nacho (1700m Benchmark 50 Handicap), Dixon will be represented by Fiery Devil (1000m maiden handicap) and Typhoon Jake (1400m maiden plate) while McCarthy has Take Cover in the 1400m class one handicap.