Dartboard chasing fifth win for trainer Brady Cross after 19 starts without a win

Dartboard won’t reach the same heights as his half-brother Anamoe but he’s been an “absolute ripper” for trainer Brady Cross since arriving as a 19-start maiden.

Dartboard has won four races since joining trainer Brady Cross as a 19-start maiden. Picture: Racing Photos via Getty Images

Consistent stayer Dartboard has seen much more of Australia than his Cox Plate-winning brother.

Dartboard is a half-brother to former Godolphin star Anamoe, who won nine Group 1 races and more than $12m in prizemoney in Melbourne and Sydney before heading off to stand at Darley for $110,000 per service.

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Dartboard has earned just over one per cent of Anamoe’s amazing racetrack haul.

But the now five-year-old has racked up thousands more kilometres in a career that has taken him from his debut at Geelong to racing in Darwin with stops to race in places like Alice Springs, Katherine and Adelaide in between.

Ballarat horseman Brady Cross is Dartboard’s seventh trainer in a career that started at Godolphin under the care of Hong Kong-bound trainer James Cummings.

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Dartboard has worked to become the star of Cross’s boutique stable with four wins, while banking more than $100,000 for connections, who paid $32,500 for the horse in an online auction in November 2022.

“He’s been an absolute ripper for us,” Cross said.

“He came to me as a 19-start maiden but he’d run five or six seconds in those starts.

“He had been around the mark in Darwin but he’d miss the start up there and get back and fly home.”

Dartboard could have his next start at Sandown on Wednesday or Geelong on Friday. Picture: Racing Photos via Getty Images

Cross was weighing up whether to give Dartboard, a last-start winner at Swan Hill, his first crack at a Melbourne metropolitan race in Wednesday’s Senet Gambling Law Experts Handicap (2400m) at Sandown.

Cross could save the son of Shooting To Win for a race at Geelong on Friday but Dartboard’s consistency should ensure the gelding would be competitive in either assignment.

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“I’ll just work out which race I’ll run him in,” Cross said.

“He’ll get 62kg if he ran at Geelong but, two starts ago, apprentice Sarah Field rode him really well so we might send him there if we decided to claim.

“We’re having a bit of a think at the moment.”

Dartboard is a $31 chance in early betting on the Sandown race but is likely to be much shorter in betting on the Geelong contest.

Originally published as Dartboard chasing fifth win for trainer Brady Cross after 19 starts without a win