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By Ray Hickson

Everything trainer Robert Agnew can control about Pony Soprano’s build up to Sunday’s $150,000 Evergreen Turf Mid North Coast Country Championships (1200m) at Port Macquarie has gone exactly to plan.

Trainer Robert Agnew.

What he can’t control is the barrier draw and that’s what concerns him about what is the three-year-old’s biggest test.

Agnew is confident Pony Soprano has the talent to go close but he’ll be relying on a perfect steer from jockey Ash Morgan and a healthy dose of luck.

“The draw’s not great, I’m either going to get an absolute grouse run or I’m going to be three deep,’’ Agnew said.

“I feel like he can cross most of them inside me, I think Ben (Looker on Bodhi Boy) holds the key to where he ends up.

“There’s so many horses that are going to be in that midfield, little bit handy, sort of area and I think my only option is to put the handlebars down and hope to God that Ben wants to be three pairs back on the fence and Get Some Fun crosses him.

“The way the track can play it wouldn’t be a bad thing if I could be in the one-one off a hot speed.”

Pony Soprano has won two of his four starts and Agnew deliberately had him underdone going into his narrow first-up win, over the Championships course at Port Macquarie last month, where he sat outside the lead under 58.5kg and got the job done.

Agnew has already experimented with riding the gelding quietly and he wasn’t as effective and while the general consensus is Sunday’s race will be strongly run he says he has to have the horse ridden to his strengths.

“He pulled up a bit big over the back and that told me there was improvement in him,’’ he said. “

“He had the softest option into his first-up win and everything I’ve planned has come forward.

“We just needed the barrier but who knows come Sunday it might not be the end of the horse. Preparation wise he’s perfect, we’ve done everything we can.

“His gallop was good on Tuesday. I’m bullish he can run a cheeky race, he’s just going to need a lot of luck.

“He’s got to handle the pressure too, it’s going to be a pressure cooker, there’s going to be a lot of speed and he’s a young horse.”

First and second from the Port Macquarie feature will progress to the $1 million Evergreen Turf Country Championships Final (1400m) at Randwick on April 5.

Agnew is on the fence about whether Pony Soprano will run a strong 1400m given he has so far been inclined to race a bit strongly but that could change with more experience.

Pony Soprano wins at Port Macquarie on January 24

“I don’t think he’s going to be hugely ineffective at 1400m,’’ he said.

“The way his manners are at the moment he might just be a 1200m horse but I don’t have to worry about that until I get there. If I get there.”

All the fields, form and replays for Sunday's Country Championships meeting at Port Macquarie