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By Ray Hickson

Easy is definitely not a word trainer David McColm would use to describe the road to the $500,000 Newhaven Park Country Championships Final (1400m) with his stable star Far Too Easy.

David McColm (left) and Far Too Easy after winning the Newhaven Park NRRA Country Championships at Grafton.

And he says it would be quite a story if the three-year-old can overcome the odds at Randwick on Saturday.

He’s not wrong. At the end of February the floods that hit the Northern Rivers area made their way into McColm’s Murwillimbah stable, despite him deliberately having them built high, and he feared the worst. The racecourse went underwater and he describes it as the toughest ordeal he’s experienced.

And this coming from a man who a decade ago had to deal with a diagnosis of a cavernoma which caused a bleed on the brain.

Fortunately, Far Too Easy and McColm’s other horses were unharmed but it looked as though his Country Championships mission was in jeopardy.

But the racing industry, as it reliably does in times of need, came to the rescue and McColm and his son Archie will have spent almost a month preparing the horse out of Scone by the time he takes his place in the Final.

“It hasn’t been the easiest of journeys. But we’re still there and we’re in with a chance,’’ McColm said.

“Every obstacle that could possibly be thrown at us has been thrown at us.

“It’s not what we imagined at all but having said that the people at Scone, the community, the racetrack, where we’re staying, have been so terrific.

“It’s like our adopted town at the moment, everyone here is interested in him.”

Far Too Easy, to be ridden by James McDonald, was $5 equal favourite on Monday to win the race based on his outstanding performance in taking out the Northern Rivers Championships at Grafton way back on February 12.

McColm said he’s been able to get the work he wanted into the gelding since he’s been in Scone. On the public front he’s had an exhibition gallop and a barrier trial to bring him back to race fitness.

“If I was at home we wouldn’t have been able to get the work into him so I’m thankful for that,’’ he said.

“It’s a little hard to get a gauge because of the distance between runs but he’s a clean winded horse and has settled in well. He’s eating and happy.

“If all of this hadn’t have happened I was going into it very confident. I’m probably not as confident but there’s nothing wrong with the horse.”

While he was safely held by Constant Flight in the 900m trial on March 23, McColm said the gallop served as a much better lead up than a race on a heavy track would have.

He doesn’t know the answer to the heavy track question but is more content tackling it without a gut-busting run as a lead up.

“The idea behind the trial was that we didn’t start between runs because he’s the type of horse that really puts in and it takes a bit out of it,’’ McColm said.

“We opted to give him a soft trial, a fitness outing to make sure everything was all right.

“We didn’t have to have the stuffing knocked out of him. He would have run into a wet track no matter where we’d have gone. We go into the race as best we possibly can.

Far Too Easy runs second in a trial at Scone on March 23

“It’s going to be a wet track. If we got back to soft he’s going to go really well, on heavy going we don’t know but we’re going to find out.”

As the finishing touches go on Far Too Easy, the irony of the horse’s name isn’t lost on McColm especially as more rain was hitting Murwillumbah early in the week.

Can he overcome the odds and be the third Northern Rivers trained winner of the Newhaven Park Country Championships Final, following Free Standing (2017) and Gracie Belle (2020)?

“It’s going to make a tremendous story if this horse can do it,’’ McColm said.

“And this is one horse that could do it. Some horses you can’t do it with, this horse is a little bit special. He’s a horse that can pull this off because he does have that X-Factor.”

All the fields, form and replays for Day 1 of The Star Championships at Randwick