Star Victorian searching for Queensland credit

By Jordan Gerrans

Already a Group 1 champion on his home turf, star chaser Accredited will take a different rout in a bid to claim victory at the highest level in the Sunshine State.

Prepared and owned by Ned McDonald at Pearcedale in Victoria, Accredited stormed to Group 1 glory over 600 metres in the Hume Cup at The Meadows in early November.

So, when McDonald mapped out a plan for his Queensland assault, the Golden Sands was the logical option over 600 metres.

The black and white dog didn’t fire in his first look at the Q2 Parklands track under race conditions in a heat of the Golden Sands a few weeks ago.

Young conditioner McDonald sent his kennel star to top local dog man Jamie Hosking for the carnival.

Instead of heading home with his tail between his legs after a lacklustre heat performance, the Hosking and McDonald combination thought latterly and dropped the classy chaser back in trip.

He ran second behind Tempting Dash in a heat of the coveted Golden Ticket series last week and on Thursday evening, Accredited gets his opportunity to book an early position in the Group 1 Gold Bullion Final.

“’Plan B’ was the Golden Ticket,” Hosking said.

“So, last week was his first go out of the 520 metre boxes, he had a wide draw and handled himself pretty well, I would say.

“I would imagine going to box one this week and having an extra look at those boxes is definitely going to do him no harm.”

On Thursday night of last week, four heats of the Group 2 Golden Ticket over 520 metres were contested.

The exciting format leads into Thursday night’s four, two-dog match races, with the winner not only collecting the $60,000 first prize, but also the ‘Golden Ticket’ into the Group 1 Gold Bullion Final on February 5.

The fastest heat time was 29.29 seconds of Tom Tzouvelis’ Tempting Dash.

Accredited (29.55 seconds in last week’s heat) will be pitted against Sooty Keeping (29.53 seconds) in his match race.

Sooty Keeping hails from the revered kennel of champion conditioner Tony Brett and already has a Group 1 title on her resume after claiming the time-honoured Flying Amy Classic in the middle of 2025.

 It will be Accredited from box one and Sooty Keeping from box three on Thursday. 

“Box one is definitely an advantage,” Hosking said.

“Sooty Keeping has been racing at the highest level for a long time now. So, definitely it will be no easy feat to try and get past her.”

The McDonald kennel is one of the up-and-coming teams in Victoria.

Trainer Ned McDonald is only in his mid-20s and counts champion Queensland gallops trainer Peter Moody as one of his owners.

Following Accredited’s Hume Cup breakthrough, the son of Fernando Bale also contested the Group 1 Melbourne Cup Final as well as The Phoenix in the back end of 2025.

“These are the races we want to be in and this is what we do it for,” McDonald said recently ahead of the northern trip.

Also youthful in the training ranks, the Churchable-based Hosking has struck up a bond with McDonald in recent times.

The Victorian mentor spent a week with Hosking recently before leaving his kennel ace with the Queensland conditioner for the remainder of the Queensland Golden Greys Summer Racing Carnival.

While Hosking has himself raced at the highest level throughout his training tenure, he admits it is still a feather in his cap to take on a classy chaser such as Accredited in a caretaker capacity.

“Accredited has been up for a month or so now,” Hosking said.

“Ned sent him up nice and early to give him a couple of trials and settle him with the heat up here.

“He's taken a couple of weeks to probably hit his straps, but I think he's really settled in now.

“Ned's very, very easy to deal with. He came up the first week with the dog to oversee it all. But, from there, he's sort of left it up to us with the day-to-day type of stuff.

“He's had a little bit of a routine, the dog.

“It is definitely an honour, a bit of a privilege to have him in the kennels.”

The Group 2 Golden Ticket match races for Thursday, January 22:

Tempting Dash (box three) vs Irish Bill (box one);

Winsome Jet (box three) vs Daysea's Rory (box one);

Sooty Keeping (box three) v Accredited (box one);

Vista Weird (box one) v Tarawi Buster (box three).