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By Greg Prichard

Bantarki gave Taree trainer Tony Ball good reason to look forward to the Evergreen Turf Country Championships when he returned from a long spell with a big run at his home track last Friday.

The five-year-old gelding hadn’t raced for 10 months and did all of the bullocking work in the Sky International Championship Preview-Class 4 Handicap over 1250m.

He sat outside of the leader, stablemate Onepointsevengone, in a fast-run race and showed plenty of fight to grab the lead halfway down the home straight, but having taken the field up to the leader he was a sitting shot for the late swoopers.

Bantarki (Jay Ford) heads to the barriers at Newcastle. Image by Bradley Photographers

And the fact it was his first start since March 22 last year made it even harder for him to hang on.

But despite tiring Bantarki was only beaten one-and-a-half lengths into fourth place by the winner, Zaru, with Ensign Parker second and Kaihoko third.

Zaru isn’t eligible for the Country Championships, having exceeded the number of career starts allowed under the qualifying conditions.

And Ensign Parker, trained by Todd Howlett at Muswellbrook, is eligible for the Hunter & North West qualifier.

But Kaihoko, which was having its first run for six months, and Bantarki are both eligible for the $150,000 Evergreen Turf MNCRA Country Championships over 1200m at Port Macquarie on February 16.

And Ball is excited to be going there with Bantarki: “It was a super run the other day,” he said. “He was going to win at the hundred but his condition gave out.

“He had to work hard and they ran good time, so he’ll improve enormously off the back of that run. I’m really looking forward to taking him to Port for the qualifier.”

The first two placegetters in each of the seven qualifiers and the winners of the two wildcard events will qualify for the $1 million Evergreen Turf Country Championships Final over 1400m at Randwick on April 5.

Bantarki finished third in last year’s qualifier run in driving rain on a track rated a Heavy 10 at Tuncurry. He only had two more starts before going for a long spell, but Ball said the length of the break wasn’t because of a desire to ensure he remained qualified for this year’s Country Championships.

Horses are no longer eligible for the series if they’ve had more than 20 starts and/or more than five wins and Bantarki has had 19 starts and four wins.

“No, he had an injury and had to be rehabilitated, so it has just worked out this way,” Ball said. “I actually had him back ready to race about eight weeks ago, but he just didn’t seem right to me so I gave him another three weeks in the paddock.

“When he came back the second time he was like his old self again and things have gone along well since then. He’s been fine since his run the other day, so the plan now is to go to the qualifier. The owners are happy with that, so we’ll see how things work out.”

View the full results with race replays for Taree here