Canberra trainer Luke Pepper hasn’t had many runners this year but his strike rate has been good.
With four winners from 18 starters this season, Pepper is hoping four-year-old gelding The Big Rig will not let the average down at Rosehill on Saturday.
His task has been made harder by barrier 12 in the TAB Highway Handicap, but Pepper says The Big Rig is “pretty versatile” and the two kilogram claim from apprentice Brodie Loy will help.
The young trainer’s name hasn’t turned up in many racebooks this season because he has been busy rebuilding his training business.
In January this year, Pepper said goodbye to the NSW south coast town of Moruya where he was training about 25 horses and set up shop at Thoroughbred Park in Canberra.
“I started pretty much fresh again,” the 35-year-old told AAP.
“It was tough, but I knew it was going to be.
“It was just something that had to be done.”
It had to be done because Pepper is on a mission.
While Canberra offers access to better-class horses and proximity to city racetracks it is not his final destination.
“Ideally I’d like to end up in Sydney training at some stage. That’s where you’ve got to be,” he said.
Pepper reels off the names of a few top trainers he would like to emulate: Peter Snowdon, Chris Waller and John Size.
“Not only are they great trainers, they’re really good people,” he said.
But Pepper is in no hurry with his ambitions.
Happy to be in the “rebuilding stage”, he is comfortable in Canberra for now.
“I started out here, it was pretty much like coming home,” he said.
It also takes Pepper back to the days when he rode trackwork on champion sprinter Takeover Target, in Australia and overseas.
“It was great to be part of not just a great horse, but a great story,” he said.
