Todd Pollard has enjoyed a dream launch to training, though Wednesday’s Ipswich card brings an unfamiliar twist in 2026.
The Brisbane-based newcomer deploys Subterrain and All Kinds Of Folk together in one race for the debut time, targeting the sixth event, a $38,000 TAB Class 4 Handicap at 1680 metres.
Recent winners both, they head in strongly, but Pollard wishes to avoid the head-to-head.
“I’d love to be splitting them if I could, but there’s just limited options for these sort of horses,” Pollard said.
“There are not enough races for them on a Saturday at the moment, so you’ve got limited options on the Wednesday meetings and I think they’re both definitely midweek metro horses.”
His prior position with Annabel and Rob Archibald exposed him to handling several runners per race before he ventured alone this year.
Boasting a 35 percent hit rate with six wins from 17 starts in under two months, the 31-year-old Kiwi thrives early.
“I couldn’t be happy with how it’s all panned out,” he said.
“Obviously we’re not going to keep that strike-rate intact, but it’s been a very good start and the horses have been running well,” he said.
“You can’t win them all and you lose more than you win in this game, but it’s a healthy strike-rate and a good way to kick things off.
You need those results straight away to get you off the mark and we’re just lucky we’re having a good run of it at the moment.”
Subterrain’s Eagle Farm 1400m win on March 25 was Pollard’s second starter success, followed by Gold Coast repeat April 10.
Transferred from Wangaratta’s John and Chris Ledger, All Kinds Of Folk won at Sunshine Coast 1400m on Anzac Day in her Pollard bow.
The four-year-old placed second in Group 3 Auraria Stakes (1800m) last April and drew ideally in barrier two with Ryan Maloney for Wednesday’s favourite status.
“She’s a horse that’s going to go through the grades up here and hopefully from a good gate tomorrow, she gets every chance and if any rain did come, that would really bring her into it as well,” Pollard said on Tuesday.
Pollard freshened the unplaced-free three-from-five Subterrain post-last run, aiming for victory before spell and bigger aims after Winter Carnival.
“We just backed off him a little bit, he’s a bit of a lightly-framed horse, so we waited for this,” Pollard said.
“He could have run last week, but we decided to wait for this race and he’s probably a horse that we’ll give him this run and then a bit of a freshen up and he can come back after the carnival’s over.”
Barrier seven sees Subterrain with Ben Thompson, top jock in Brisbane.
Discover racing betting markets via betting sites ahead of the TAB Class 4 Handicap at Ipswich.