Unlucky Double Or Nothing gets a draw to be on the speed and hard to beat on Tuesday

Double Or Nothing should finish top two at Albion Park on Tuesday but he’ll still need to race up to his best against a field of older and seasoned pacers.

Drawn two in a field of seven, trainer Al Barnes expects to see his son Hayden either lead or trail on Lincoln Farms’ consistent three-year-old.

And that would put him in a winning position and eliminate the bad luck which saw him finish only fourth last start.

Double Or Nothing was caught three wide on a blistering opening quarter of 26.9 on January 17 but eventually lobbed a beautiful one-one trial.

Double Or Nothing, arrowed, is full of running and looking to get out of a pocket.But when Hayden wanted to pull the trigger on Double Or Nothing he was hemmed up in traffic, held up all the way round the home bend and well into the home stretch before being able to angle into the clear.

Double Or Nothing finished on strongly to be only 4.5 metres from winner Flying Wingard, almost in line with the second and third horses.

“But he didn’t ping like we thought he would,” says Barnes. “That’s why Hayden stayed in because we thought he had a more brilliant turn of foot. We’re still learning about him but it seems that while he has good speed he needs time to wind up.

“Hayden might want to lead on Tuesday and I’d say he’ll be either there or in the trail and from there he should go close, and finish in the top two.

“But he’ll have to do a good job because it’s a reasonably strong race and there are plenty of seasoned, older horses against him and the one horse (Rocknroll Classic) goes nicely.”

Barnes says Double Or Nothing will find it a little harder than former stablemate Trojan Banner did on his arrival in Brisbane last year.

That’s because the new national ratings system had not yet begun and Trojan Banner was so lowly assessed despite his record he was able to win seven on end.

“He’s probably rated a bit higher than he should be but we’ll see if he can handle it. He should do.”

Double Or Nothing made an instant impression first-up in Brisbane when he looped the field and ran away to score in a 1:55.4 mile rate.

The winner’s time last start was 1.1 seconds slower and they only crawled home in 59.2 and 30.2.

Double Or Nothing races at 4.53pm NZ time at Albion Park on Tuesday.