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By Geoff Newling

Don't Tease Me is headed to either next Tuesday’s Winter Dash at Tamworth or a midweek Sydney sprint.

The Muswellbrook gelding, winner of seven of his 31 starts and $152,295 in prizemoney, was one of 16 nominations for Tamworth Jockey Club’s FSDP Winter Dash (1000m).

“We’ve got the two options,” Muswellbrook-based Stephen Gleeson said. “The Winter Dash at Tamworth or go to Sydney next Wednesday. It will be one or the other.”

The horse has had four starts at Tamworth for a win and two seconds. His win was a 1000m success over All Summer Long while one of his runner-up efforts was as a two-year-old in the Romantic Dream Plate.

The five-year-old gelding son of Beautiful Crown is a recent winner too, having won the Lone Pine Charge at his home Skellatar Park track on April 21 and then finishing second at Warwick Farm in mid-May. He was one of the higher benchmark raters with only fellow Muswellbrook galloper In A Wink (88), Corsica Lad (84) and Grand Condor (83) rated higher.

Stephen Gleeson is also also readying to run a few of his stable at Friday week’s home Muswellbrook meeting.

“I could have a few go around,” he said. “I’ve got a few kicking off campaigns and they might run if they work well this week.”

Gleeson has 10 in work at the moment and also hopes to welcome back Leanne Henry from her recent fall at Warialda. Henry was injured in the tragic incident that took Darren Jones’s life and sent Melanie Bolwell to intensive care in Gold Coast Hospital.

“Hopefully Leanne will be back riding work next week,” he said. “Been six or seven weeks since Warialda. She’s had some shocking luck ever since that bad fall in the Mudgee Cup and hopefully she’ll get a clear run now.”

Gleeson is also hopeful Cosmic Reign will develop into a nice horse after the three-year-old gelding son of Trotamondo broke through at Armidale on Tuesday. The Muswellbrook gelding surged clear in the straight under Terry Green’s strong riding to win the Uralla Bowling and Recreation Club Maiden Handicap (1100m).

It was his third run and first-up from a spell after he had hung on the turn at the tight saucer Gilgandra track back in January.

Sky Thoroughbred Central commentator Gary Kliese thought it a promising effort: “There’s a lot more improvement in that horse,” he reckoned. Stephen Gleeson agreed.

“He will improve off that,” Stephen Gleeson said after the Tuesday win. “He might have a bit of a future after that and might get further as well."

View the nominations and full form with race replays for Tamworth here