WHILE Keith Cotchin is the first to concede Betternbetter is unlikely to ever recapture the form of his brilliant two-year-old season, he still derives plenty of satisfaction from watching him score a win.
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The now four-year-old gelding stamped himself as one of harness racing future stars when he won the Group 2 Empire Stallions VicBred Platinum Home Grown Classic for two-year-old colts and geldings in 2018.
That win capped a run of four-straight victories for Betternbetter, from his first five starts, before being thrust into a life and death battle after being struck down by a bout of colic.
Surgery and a long post-operation recovery ensued, with the gelding making an overdue winning comeback eight months later at Kilmore in January 2019.
He has since won five times from 15 starts, only recently returning from a solid campaign in New South Wales, to notch a win at Thursday night's meeting at Bendigo.
Betternbetter's win formed part of a double on Thursday for his Elmore trainer, who also enjoyed success with the always competitive Brackenreid.
Cotchin was candid when asked if the gelding could again strike 'career-best' form.
"Probably not, but you don't know and you can only hope - he's still got the speed, but I don't know whether he's got the stamina he once had," he said.
"At this stage we will just poke along and see where he ends up.
"He really looked something special as a two-year-old, but has never been the same.
"What happened? We can't answer that question - it was just the colic. We can't find anything physically wrong, we're thankful we've still got him.
"The way he is still going to be very competitive and win a lot of races for us."
Cotchin considers Brackenreid, who was confidently driven to victory by Haydon Gray, 'desperately unlucky' not to have added to his lone win at Tabcorp Park Melton in January 2018.
The five-year-old gelding has a swag of placings to his name at racing headquarters over the past year and, while racing is confined to regions for the moment, his trainer feels his opportunity will again come.
"He's been stiff, he's been knocking on the door to win one, but he'll get his chance," Cotchin said.
"I thought he might have won before now, he might have been a little bit disappointing.
"With the the new handicapping system, because he was so consistent, he got handicapped quite harshly. It was a big jump from the class of horses he was racing against, so it has taken him a while to adapt.
"We probably have to drive him a little bit tougher than we have been, he likes it when they are running along a bit, but if they go a little bit slower he just lacks that little bit of speed.
"He's really starting to develop now."
Cotchin praised the winning drives of both Gray and Tayla French, who had her first drive aboard Betternbetter, who has now won nine races from 20 starts.
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