Tarawera, winner of Saturday's The Australian Steeplechase at Sandown, will head a team of jumpers co-trainers Brian Johnston and Fran Houlahan intend to race in England next year.Johnston and Houlahan were also celebrating their 29th wedding anniversary on Saturday but the victory was bittersweet for them as they could have their livelihood pulled from under their feet with jumps racing under threat of being banned in Victoria after this season."I think jumps racing has a limited future here,"

Tarawera, winner of Saturday's The Australian Steeplechase at Sandown, will head a team of jumpers co-trainers Brian Johnston and Fran Houlahan intend to race in England next year.

Johnston and Houlahan were also celebrating their 29th wedding anniversary on Saturday but the victory was bittersweet for them as they could have their livelihood pulled from under their feet with jumps racing under threat of being banned in Victoria after this season.

"I think jumps racing has a limited future here," Johnston said.

"It's all dependant on KPIs (key performance indicators) and there is a formula in place to say whether it stays or goes.

"Mr Hines (Racing Victoria Limited CEO Rob Hines) said the other day we weren't meeting the KPIs and it was looking fairly ordinary for us.

"He's the boss so you have to take heed of that."

Johnston said ideally he would like to take six horses to England in January and aim them towards the Cheltenham Festival in March, but in the meantime he must recruit some horses to take with Tarawera.

"We've been thinking about it for a long while and if we've got the right horses we'll have a crack at Cheltenham," Johnston said.

"If the right horses come along we'd buy them but they must understand they won't be worth much money in this country but they'll be worth a lot of money in other countries."

Sent out at $4.40 in the $100,000 feature over 3900m, Tarawera, ridden by Trent Wells, was handy throughout before racing past the leader Last Shogun ($10) well before the home turn.

He found plenty under pressure to hold off Virvacity ($4.80) by 2-3/4 lengths with Last Shogun fighting back to be a length away third, just ahead of Our Santa.

"He's going to make a great horse in England next year," Johnston said.

However he said there was no comparison between Tarawera, who is unbeaten in two steeplechase starts, both at Sandown, and last year's Jumper of the Year Pentiffic who won the 2009 Hiskens, Crisp and Grand National Steeples.

"Tarawera is a nice horse, but Pentiffic is a superstar," Johnston said.

Pentiffic is now in England with trainer Venetia Williams after a tendon injury forced him out of the Nakayama Grand Jump in Japan in April.

The disappointment of Saturday's race was Mazzacano ($3.50 fav) who was after a record third win in the race but was pulled up by Steven Pateman after struggling back in last place on the home turn.

Trainer Robbie Laing said he could find nothing wrong with the horse after the race but he would have a thorough veterinary check before a decision is made on whether to retire him.

Tainui Teina fell early in the race but was not injured while Brett Scott was dislodged from Mali Juraj at the last fence.

Mazzacano and Volkswagin were both eased out of the race after being the last two horses into the home straight.