RACING Southern Chances Good At Trentham Today

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30348, 25 January 1964, Page 4

RACING Southern Chances Good At Trentham Today

(From Our Own Reporter) WELLINGTON, January 24. South Island stables are strongly represented in major races on the last day of the Wellington Cup meeting tomorrow and it will be surprising if success eludes their representatives all along the line.

The combined efforts of Boundless, Gay Filou, and Great Sensation should have a big bearing on the result of the Trentham Stakes.

Palisade looks equal to the task of winning the Wellington Racing Club Handicap and Rondabelle and Double hold strong chances in the City Handicap.

The 11-year-old Great Sensation will be attempting to win his second Trentham Stakes tomorrow. And there is growing confidence in his ability to run a great race in distinguished company.

»His regular rider, R. J. Skelton, feels that the old Cassock gelding is just about aj good as ever he was, and is confident that he will improve on a rather weak third in the Dunedin Cup last ifionth. •• Great Sensation won the Trentham Stakes two years ago and was unlucky in this r>ce the year before, when Picaroon won. Last year he did a scratchy preliminary <sn a hard track, and did not run within a stone <Jf his best form. That made it easy for Stipulate, which had been Second behind Great Sensation in the Wellington Cup

a week earlier. Boundless faces his toughest task so far but everyone who saw him win the Gloaming Stakes must feel confident in the colt’s ability to test his elder rivals. If the track is firm, and Boundless is allowed to settle and bowl along in front, as he did in the Gloaming Stakes, he should be hard to peg back at the end of 11 furlongs. Summer Regent has made his mark at weight-for-age both in New Zealand and Australia. He has thrived since his close and unlucky third in the Wellington Cup and his strength and finishing powers could pull him through.

Gay Filou is a better horse if anything for his winning run in the Wellington Cup, and spurted with marked dash in a grand training gallop on Thursday. With G. F. Hughes up he will have one of the most astute tactical riders in the race and this could be one of those many weight-for-age races in which the result swings on riding tactics. Royal Duty looked as if he was feeling the ground in his preliminary for the Gloaming Stakes, but ran freely enough in the race only to be beaten by the more seasoned Boundless. He should be a fitter colt for a shorter race tomorrow and many North Islanders who have followed him through his career won’t hear of Boundless beating him for a second time at the meeting. The richest race and certainly the hardest one on a high-class programme is the £6OOO George Adams Handicap. There are many topclass milers engaged, and betting will be so well spread that even the favourite could be at odds of about six to one.

If there is no marked change in the track Count One will probably be the hardest to . beat. This brilliant four-year-old from Matamata has won three of this season’s hardest mile races, the Wainui Handicap at Trentham, and the Christmas Handicap and Caltex Stakes at the Auckland Cup meeting. Funny Story, the runnerup to Count One in the Christmas Handicap and a strongly finishing second over seven furlongs at Trentham last Monday, is in form for a bold bid. She runs her races out very solidly, and her chances might rest on the run she gets when trying to improve through or around a big field. The most likely improver in the field is Roodyvoo. He is high-class at his best and he looked close to his best last Saturday when he finished a bandy eighth under 9-5 in tile Telegraph Handicap, six furlongs;

Fairford was scratched today for the Hopeful Stakes, for which he was the early favourite. There is nothing wrong with him, but he is a big colt and is growing fast, and his Otaki trainer, J. A. McFarlane, will probably keep him for the two-year-old races at the Wellington autumn meeting.