Gutsy Captain Nemo’s a real lefty leaving Ray in a tricky dilemma over his future

For the second time in a week Captain Nemo showed real grit to win, sitting parked to bag the feature race at Palmerston North on Tuesday night.

Just five days earlier the strapping Captaintreacherous three-year-old paced a huge race to score at Cambridge after being trapped three wide for much of the race, with no cover over the last lap.

But while Lincoln Farms’ trainer Ray Green says he can’t fault the wins, he also knows that the horse can’t keep copping such hard runs.

“You can’t keep driving him like that and expect to get away with it. Sooner or later he needs to get a trip or lead.

“His last two runs have been great but it will be hard to sit parked against better horses. There’s a vast gap between the Cambridge and Manawatu horses and the ones he meets at Auckland.

“While the opposition is also considerably weaker down there he’s also a different horse left-handed.

David Butcher brings Captain Nemo back to scale at Palmerston North on Tuesday. PHOTO: Royden Williams.“Now that he’s a rating 57, going back to Auckland may be a necessary evil but I’m not sure if that’s the way to go.

“Initially he was hitting a knee there but we rectified that. In his last couple of runs he hasn’t got on his knees and he doesn’t even wear a spreader there now.”

Green has always had a good opinion of Captain Nemo and earlier on rated him a potential derby horse.

“The raw ability is there but he just lacks a yard of speed. He’s a nice horse but he’s not up to the topliners and sooner or later he’s going to have to front up to them.

“His future could lie in Australia where they can place horses much more easily. But I think he’s better than a Brisbane horse and I don’t know if he’d be suited up there because he doesn’t have gate speed and gets back. Maybe we’ll have to sell him.”

The $10,850 Captain Nemo has earned in the last week took his career tally to $44,198 from just 24 starts.

And his preference for left-handed racing is borne out by the stats - from seven goes that way round he has notched four wins, two seconds and a fourth for Lincoln Farms owners John and Lynne Street, Ian Middleton, the Green Machine Syndicate, Grant Dickey, Peter Dougherty and Gareth Paddison who was gifted a share for finishing runner-up in last year’s Wairakei Invitational golf tourney.