No more punting on Louie, Ray says enough’s enough and dispatches him to Brisbane

Louie The Punter will be on a flight to Australia in nine days, the latest victim of New Zealand’s crippling handicapping system.

And Lincoln Farms’ trainer Ray Green says he’s confident the horse can win some good money over there and remain competitive, a combination that’s impossible under the much maligned ratings scale here.

Green says there’s no future for Louie The Punter in this country and he’ll struggle to cope with the opposition in Friday night’s seventh race at Auckland, especially from gate five.

“He’s just been marking time here whereas in Australia he can be placed so much better, find his right level, and be a decent enough racehorse.”

Green says as soon as the Sweet Lou four-year-old scored at Cambridge two starts back he was virtually history in New Zealand.

For winning a $4950 stake, the horse went up seven ratings points to 58.

That meant that the following week, when entered at Cambridge again, the only race he could run in was the Cambridge Classic, where he was expected to compete against one of the fastest horses in the country, New Zealand Free-for-all winner South Coast Arden, who was a rating 103 horse.

Green naturally scratched his horse, as did others, leaving it a four-horse race.

Owners, increasingly racing uncompetitive horses, aren’t just scratching from races, they are opting out entirely. The imminent departure of Louie The Punter comes after one of the busiest months of sales overseas, one agent reporting the strongest demand in the last 10 years as Australia and America feel the pinch of smaller foal crops and look to New Zealand to compensate.

Louie The Punter’s exit also completes the sale or export to Australia of all Lincoln Farms’ horses over the age of three, Merv Butterworth’s New Zealand Cup winner Copy That aside.

Louie The Punter, who has won three of his 20 starts for John and Lynne Street and Glenn and Ann Cotterill, will be trained at Woongoolba in south-east Queensland by Mark Dux who prepares former stablemates Tommy Lincoln and Captain Nemo.

He will be joined on the flight by unraced two-year-old filly Tempting Tigress who has been bought from Kevin Pizzuto by leviathan owner Danny Zavitsanos.