RACING Fast Northerners In Great Easter Handicap

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29802, 19 April 1962, Page 5

RACING Fast Northerners In Great Easter Handicap

All against numerical odds, North Island sprinters have won the Great Easter Handicap twice in the last three years. The combined efforts of Auriette, Fairassan and Erldon could improve the northerners’ record in this year’s Great Easter, which will be run next Monday. Fairassan was the only North Island sprinter in a field of 18 when he won the Great Easter last year, and Drum Roll was also the lone colour-bearer for the North Island when he won in 1959.

Fairassan is already at Riccarton and did pace work there yesterday. He ran badly at Hastings last week, and holds little appeal on form, but he will probably have solid backing because of his well-known liking for racing at Riccarton. Auriette, the likely favourite for the race, will arrive this morning. She is trained at Otaki by J. A. McFarlane, who is also bringing her halfbrother, Le Plus, south for the Champagne Stakes. Auriette is second topweight with 8-12, 21b below Roman Maid, the 1960 Great Easter winner and third to Fairassan and Cadiz last year. Fresh Campaign Erldon, a Balloch gelding trained at Masterton by T. L. Jennings, developed good form about this time last year and won five races between April and the end of the season. He won again against some good sprinters on the second day of the Grand National meeting, and ran some more useful races, two of them

behind Commanding, in the spring before the tracks hardened. Then he was put aside and is still in the early stages of his fresh campaign. Pine Ridge, a light-weight in the Great Easter Handicap, and a stablemate of Fairassan, will probably be reserved for the Papanui Hack Handicap. It is many years since South Canterbury has had a more brilliant light-weight claimant for Great Easter honours than the Jekyll filly, Double. Though she is untested in open class. Double has looked a good bit better than average as a sprinter. She has won her last three races, each of them progressively easier, and she has been a strong Great Easter fancy since her win in the Arthur Gardiner Hack Handicap at the Oamaru Centennial meeting. Double won that race under 9-5 by four lengths, and reeled off the distance in Imin 12 l-ssec. Roman Maid went only two-fifths of a second faster when she won the open sprint with 81b less earlier in the afternoon.

Gold View could be another strong representative for South Canterbury. She did not make the expected improvement with age last year and has had only near misses in big sprint races this season. However, she was freshened a few weeks back, and could come back to racing with a show of form which carried her to a win over Braganza and Cadiz in the CJ.C. Challenge Stakes about this time last year.

Given firm footing, Roman Maid and Royal Leigh will probably be Riccarton’s best. They have been easy winners lately on provincial courses, and have a background of successes on the metropolitan tracks. Royal Leigh is 161 b below Roman Maid, and that might mean much at the end of seven fast-run furlongs.