RACING Lampada May Be Test For Younger Rivals

Press, Volume C, Issue 29673, 17 November 1961, Page 4

RACING Lampada May Be Test For Younger Rivals

The race which will be of outstanding interest in New Zealand tomorrow will be the Waikato Racing Club’s Foxbridge Plate, a £l6OO weight-for-age event run over a mile and a quarter at Te Rapa.

. The popular fancies in this feature event on the first day of the Waikato spring meeting are Lampada, from Te Awamutu; the Hastings visitor, Picaroon; and Lord Sasanof, from Takanini.

Lampada was one of the handicap “finds” in the north last season when he contested 10 races, won five of them and was placed in three of the others. There was promise of an early return to his peak form this term at his latest start when he chased Mussetu and Clymon home in the Alison Cup at Ellerslie on November 4. That was his third race in a fresh campaign. Lampada will have achieved two notable in the Foxbridge Plate if he succeeds tomorrow. He is an eight-year-old trying for his second win in the race. His age group has not been represented successfully in 11 previous contests and no horse has ever won the race twice. Since the inception of the Foxbridge Plate in 1950 five-year-olds and horses in the lower age groups have won all but one contest. The exception was Lampada last year. Seven-year-olds dominate this year’s field. They will be represented by six of the 11 runners and Picaroon is one •of them. Picaroon's Form Picaroon has last start weight-for-age form on his record. His latest race was the Harcourt Stakes in which he was the runner-up to the high-class Nerula at Trentiham last month.

This will be Picaroon’s second try for Foxbridge Plate honours and his pre-race campaign has been almost identical. In 1959 Picaroon was the runner-up to Fair Filou in the Harcourt Stakes before going north to contest the Foxbridge Plate. Fair Filou made it two wins in succession in the Te Rapa event but Picaroon finished out of a place. On Demand has the strongest form background of the other seven-year-olds in tomorrow’s field. He has won two of his last three races and the latest of those was the Cambridge Club’s Mervyn Wells Handicap, run over 11 furlongs at Te Rapa last Saturday. Horses in the popular age groups five-year-olds and under—are Lord Sasanof, Heidi and Senor. Five-Year-Olds Lord Sasanof and Heidi are both five-year-olds with strong form on their records. Lord Sasanof will switch to middle distance racing after two very good runs as a sprinter this season. Lord Sasanof began his present campaign successfully against the open sprinters in the Cheltenham Handicap at Ellerslie on November 4. He confirmed that form at Te Rapa last Saturday by conceding Don Palatine 281 b and ran him to a neck in the Tulloch Handicap over six

furlongs at the Cambridge meeting. ' Last season Lord Sasanof rounded a successful campaign by winning twice against the open milers—at Te Aroha and Avondaleunder solid weights, so there should be high hopes that he will manage 10 furlongs just as competently under the standard weight-for-age scale of 9-3. Heidi was a fast finisher for third in the Mervyn Wells Handicap at Te Rapa last Saturday and only noses separated her from On Demand and Top Liner. That was her most promising run in five races this season. But her ability to manage a middle distance successfully has not been in doubt. Two years ago she managed the New Zealand Oaks distance successfully at Riccarton Senor. a four-year-old and the youngest runner in tomorrow’s field, has not come up to expectations in his three races this season, but it has been noticeable that, at least, he has been running on each time and his latest races were the Wellington and Watkins Handicaps at the Wellington spring meeting last month. Senor's staying record as a three-year-old was solid and in addition to four winning runs he was also placed in both St. Legers. He faces a fairly severe test in this field under 9-0. but one of his peak runs could get him into the finish just the same