John Luttrell says he has a stable full of promising horses but their preparations are being hampered by the poor training conditions at Brighton.
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A veteran of 45 years in racing, Luttrell says he has never been more frustrated.
"I've got 24 horses in my stable and couldn't work them last week because the (Brighton) track was closed," he said.
"I would have sent some to the Elwick trials but they were called off three days in a row.
"A couple of truckloads of horses were allowed to gallop on the (Elwick) track but no-one offered me that opportunity.
"It's pretty poor, really - I was p... off.
"All I was able to do was work them on the treadmill or swim them."
Luttrell said Brighton was re-opened for trackwork on Monday but it would only take a couple more days of rain to close it again.
"It will be closed again on Thursday morning so they can put more sand on it," he said.
"But the track is very poor - it's just not draining properly."
Luttrell said he had eight two-year-olds ready to trial.
"I was going to jump them out of the barriers instead but the track was too wet for that," he said.
"There's some well bred horses among them - it's probably the best group of young horse I've ever had."
Despite the obstacles he's having to overcome, Luttrell has had his horses racing well since the resumption and got a double with Apriano and Little River Boy at the last Hobart meeting.
He has 13 acceptors for Elwick on Sunday, with Apriano and Little River Boy among them, but the horse he is really looking forward to seeing back at the track is Set Play.
"He's real nice horse and I had him ready to go a fair while ago," the trainer said.
"He's been in work for four months and is 100 per cent fit."
The three-year-old won two of his four starts last time in and finished fourth to Still A Star in the $75,000 3YO Cup.
"I think he's an open-class horse," Luttrell said.
"But where we go with him at the moment is up in the air.
"There's a couple of $50,000 races including the Autumn 3YO Classic that were lost during the shutdown so I'm hoping they re-program them."
EARLY START TO 10-RACE CARD
It was be a long day for some at Elwick on Sunday with a massive 10-race program starting at 10.10 am and not finishing until 4 pm.
Feature race is an open handicap over 1400m that sees the return of Tasmanian Oaks winner and Hobart Cup runner-up Shady Hustle.
PADDY BACK AFTER THROAT PROBLEM
Cool Water Paddy, one of Tasmania's most promising pacers, returns to the track in the Rating 70-79 at Mowbray on Sunday night.
The four-year-old had won nine races in a row before finishing a distant last to No Spring Secrets when resuming in Hobart on June 14.
He was beaten a long way from home and, although the vet reported he was slow to recover, no other abnormalities were found on the night.
However trainer Juanita McKenzie said it had since been established the gelding had a throat condition which affected his performance.
"It resulted in his tongue blocking his airway," she said.
Cool Water Paddy has fully recovered but McKenzie said that, because he had a hard run first-up, she has been easy on him since.
"He'll have to get back to race fitness," she said.
The gelding will start from outside the second row in a handy field where his main danger appears to be the ultra-consistent Lip Reader.
In seven starts since joining Rohan Hillier from NSW, Lip Reader has recorded five wins and two seconds (one of them behind Cool Water Paddy).
FOUR MEETINGS FOR 'IMPROPER DRIVING'
Reinsman Paul Ashwood has been suspended for four meetings on an improper driving charge.
Stewards took exception to Ashwood's tactics on ninth-placed Resurgent Storm, an $11 chance, in the Rating 30-75 in Launceston on Sunday night.
They found that Ashwood had 'strongly restrained' Resurgent Storm while racing in the one-out, one-back position allowing a horse caught three wide to drop into that coveted spot.
They said that in their opinion it would have been well within Resurgent Storm's capabilities to hold his position.
Ashwood pleaded not guilty to the charge.