It's not every week that 86-year-old trainer Harold Norman has an urban runner on Saturday.
Not to mention two in one race.
The veteran rider believes it will take at least two years.
But Norman – who told Racenet last year that he wanted to train until he was 100 – will field a pair of runners in Saturday's city race at Eagle Farm.
Norman, who went to school on horseback, believes one of them could be a potential contender for the Queensland Winter Carnival.
• 'State-restricted races are nonsense': RQ boss signals summer carnival reform
Lisaro, a three-year-old son of champion Lonhru, is known as 'Larry the Larrikin' at Norman's Gold Coast stables.
Referring to how the runner was “a bit of a punk” before he was gelded before arriving into the care of Norman from former trainer Cassie Fogden.
Lisaro, who had a solid win on the Sunshine Coast in October before being spelled, resumes the QTIS 3YO Handicap (1400m) on Saturday where he will race against a field that includes stablemate Coney Island Baby.
• “Kingston Town did!” King wins in his first appearance as “Miracle” Mal
“I think Lonhro’s horse (Lisaro) could be a winter carnival horse,” Norman said.
“He had never raced when I got him, he had only been sold a couple of weeks before.
“He's kind of a drifter, we call him Larry the Park.
“He's settled in beautifully now, winning his last start and then I took him out and gave him a great spell.
“But now he's back in action for a very long time without racing, I nominated him a few times but we missed some tests.
“He's still very immature and has a lot to learn about racing, he's a real talent but in all his starts he's been a bit green.”
• The crocodile was bloodied and may have run its last race
The Coney Island Baby will make his fifth start of a campaign in which Norman at one point chased a rich Gold Coast Magic Millions dream.
At some point Norman did not realize that Coney Island Baby was a Magic Millions horse, but raced him in the $300,000 Group 3 Vo Rogue Plate to try to qualify him for the $3 million Magic Millions Guineas.
Coney Island Baby did not qualify for the Guineas but was not disgraced in the Vo Rogue when he finished seventh after starting a $151 shot.
Norman has now removed the blinkers.
“He ran well in the Vo Rogue after running well in the blinkers,” Norman said.
“But the last start, we had blinders on him and he was almost shy about things.
“He made the breaks at the 500m mark but then started coming back again in the latter part of the race.”
Jim Byrne will race for Coney Island Baby on Saturday while Mark du Plessis will ride for Lesaro.
Originally published as Harold Norman, 86, to have two runners in the same city race at Eagle Farm, including a potential winter carnival horse
