Former Muswellbrook mentor Matthew Robinson sets Alot Like Home for tilt at $50,000 Country Championships Wild Card

Alot Like Home is trained at Taree by Matthew Robinson but returning to Skellatar Park with the horse for the Wild Card will be a homecoming for the trainer.

Robinson was born and raised in Muswellbrook, along with his brother Andrew, by their parents, the late John Robinson and their mother Dot.

Their father was a well-known trainer and both boys learned their craft from him before going to what was then Crown Lodge and worked under John Hawkes and Peter Snowden, who was then foreman.

Matthew returned to Muswellbrook to train but could not get owners.

"I went to Taree one day, liked it and never left," he said.

Andrew now trains out of Muswellbrook while their mother works for Muswellbrook Race Club.

Three Muswellbrook-trained horses, Art D'amour, Roman Typhoon and Majestic Pedrille, have been nominated for the Wild Card but Roman Typhoon and Majestic Pedrille are well down the order of entry and might not get a run.

Art d'Amour is assured of a start but trainer Aleacia Bennett says the horse is a less than 50 per cent chance of starting.

She had no intention of nominating until rain came but worries that there might still not be enough give in the track.

"He likes the cut out of the ground and I am more inclined to keep him to the soft tracks on the coast," she said.

Which leaves Alot Like Home to at least partially carry the flag for Muswellbrook and, according to Robinson, he is a huge chance.

"He has been unlucky in a couple of races including the heat at Port Macquarie where he got cluttered up," he said.

"He is a horse that needs space to be able to maintain his momentum."

Alot Like Home ran seventh in that heat at his first start from a spell then followed up with a close second to Shelley Beach Road, also at Port Macquarie.

Andrew Gibbons rode him in that race but Robinson is hoping he can convince Ben Looker to ride the horse on Sunday.