Trainer Matthew Dunn has struck the opening blow in the 2026 Evergreen NRRA Country Championship race series which kicked off with the Coffs Harbour qualifier on Sunday, winning the race with the four-year-old mare Considered, who jumped as the $2.45 favourite.
Dunn had made his intentions clear with regard to this particular leg of the Country Championships Series.
After first acceptors he had seven of the fourteen first acceptors, including the original race favourite Scripted. Dunn was then down to six runners when he scratched Without Parallel and then Scripted also came out leaving Dunn with a five-pronged attack in what ultimately played out as a ten horse field, so he was back to saddling half of the field.
Numbers mean one thing … performance quite another though, so to get the chocolates one of the Dunn five had to produce the goods for the stable to get the desired result.
Punters decided that the runner best equipped to do that was Considered, who took up the place vacated by Scripted at the top of the betting boards to jump as the race favourite at a starting price of $2.45.
Dunn also sent out the second and third favourites in the form of Kingdom Undersiege ($4.20) and Moscow Circus ($6.50).
Considered jumped well from the number one barrier draw but, when the speed came around him, Andrew Mallyon elected to take a sit and track the leaders, settling the daughter of So You Think back in fifth place, saving ground a touch under three lengths behind the early leader, the $201 bolter Call Me Super
Considered then went back to four lengths off the speed as the field began the sweep to the home turn. At the same time Nash Rawiller, riding Considered’s stable-mate Kingdom Undersiege rushed up on the outside to sit outside the leader and these two runners led the field to the home turn with the balance of the runners starting to pack up behind them.
On straightening, Mallyon had shifted Considered marginally off the rail looking for clear galloping room. He was held up momentarily racing tight on the heels of the starting to tire Kingdom Undersiege, but when Mallyon did extricate her from that pocket, Considered accelerated quickly to surge past runners, but she had one going with her down the centre of the track in the form of the $26 outsider Baby Ryan, who was arriving with a real rattle.
The favourite knuckled down to the task though and pulled a length clear of Baby Ryan with 150m left to run.
Neither of these two runners would give an inch over the concluding stages but, having established an advantage, Considered remain strong enough to the still hold a 0.81 length margin at the line.
This battle carried these two runners well clear of the chasing pack with the third placed De Forza finishing all of 5.44 lengths behind the winner, a detail which underlines the merit of Considered’s win as well as the huge effort of Baby Ryan.
The first two placed runners both qualify for the $1 million series final at Randwick on April 4.
