LOCAL trainer Clint Lundholm will have two chances in Sunday's $100,000 Country Championship Qualifier at Dubbo Turf Club and he confesses the two horses could not be more different.
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It has been a less than smooth preparation for Lundholm, with his main hope Snippety Sip having to go under the knife recently to repair a bone chip and being forced out of the race.
But on Sunday he will saddle up the consistent Any Blinkin' Day and the ever-improving Farewell Julia.
"It's racing, you start with a few and then you end up with what's left but we're still lucky to have two good chances," he said.
"Any Blinkin' Day has been preparing for this for 12 months, he's placed in his last five starts and had two wins, two seconds and a third.
"And Farewell Julia, her last run at Coonamble was really good when she came from last to finish third so she deserves it."
While both horses deserve to be there, that is where the similarities end.
"They're completely opposite," Lundholm laughed.
"One's big and almost 17 hands and the other is only almost 15, one has been preparing for this for 12 months and one is in because of last start and one is a gelding and one is a mare so you couldn't get more opposite but they're both going to put in a claim this race."
On paper Any Blinkin' Day appears the strongest of Lundholm's two chances.
After wins at Dubbo and Parkes earlier in the year the big gelding has finished third and second his past two starts and has become a much more mature horse than he was early in his career.
"I always just thought he was immature, he's was always really hot and now he's not too bad," he said.
"After last preparation he went out for a really good spell because he's only ever been around the stables.
"He was out on a couple of thousand acres and it just let him grow up and be a horse and now all he wants to do is race."
Any Blinkin' Day, who will be ridden by Greg Ryan, is aiming for a top two spot in order to book a ticket to Royal Randwick.
The four-year-old already has one run in Sydney under his belt after finishing sixth in one of the Highway Handicap races at Rosehill late last year.
"Any Blinkin' Day has got form alongside the current Country Championship favourite Clearly Innocent," Lundholm said.
"He finished only about a length behind him in the Highway Handicap race and he's improved a hell of a lot since then so I'd love to go down and have another crack."
