Surprising Cup Time

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31704, 13 June 1968, Page 4

Surprising Cup Time

(From the Australian correspondent of "The Press") SYDNEY. The Brisbane Cup winner. Prominence, deserved his success in the comparatively weak field that contested the race on Monday. But who would have imagined him capable of running the two miles in 3min 18.6 sec to clip nine-tenths of a second off the Australian record for two miles, and I.lssec off the Queensland record for the distance.

Prominence, a four-year-old by Empyrean, was still a maiden galloper until the end of last November when he won the Ormond Handicap run over one mile and a half at Caulfield. He won the Scoble Handicap at Flemington three weeks later, running a good time for the mile and five furlongs, but it was not until he flashed home second in the Sydney Cup that he showed anything like that form again. Not that h? had a chance in the Sydney Cup against General Command, which had won pulling up by six lengths In a slowly run race. Taken back to Melbourne where he

Is trained. Prominence won the Coral Sea Handicap, run over one mile and threequarters at Flemington, and it became apparent that the longer the race the better his prospects of winning. Big Weight On the face of things the race looked at the mercy of General Command until his breakdown. At the weight difference he seemed certain, at least, of again holding Prominence. The picture now has a different look; good as he is General Command would have had to turn on a performance of championship class to carry his big weight at just over 36 m.p.h. for two miles, for that Is the relative time put up by Prominence. Perhaps the connections of the AJ.C. Derby winner, Swift Peter, can consider themselves unlucky to have encountered Prominence in sueh devastating galloping mood.

Prince Peter beat the others but found it hard enough to finish in front of Booberella, while having no chance In the last furlong wkh Prominence.

While the top-notchers were in Brisbane for the feature raees there T. J. Smith left behind in Sydney the three-year-old filly Sunshine Sue. It was an enforced decision for, ordinarily, Sunshine Sue would have been in Brisbane

i for the Oaks, bnt the entry i had been missed. [ Terrific Effort ‘ The compensation came, ; however, when the filly won the Winter Stakes at Randwick on Monday, making a terrific effort to gain the dei eision from Mullen’s Lane f and London Beau in a neck i and neek struggle over the ■ last stages of the mile and a I quarter journey. Sunshine Sue Is a filly by Agricola from Refugee and ’ her win was her first in open i company, for her previous I four successes—two of them ’ at two years—bad been in i fillies’ races. In due course : she will go to the stud at i Newhaven Park, for she is i one of a number of fillies that stud has bought to enrieh ’ the strains in its paddocks.

Cyron To Spell (Special Crspdt. N.Z.F.A.J SYDNEY. The Ne* Zeelend-bred Cyron and three other Sydney horses —Gay Gauntlet, Winged Beauty and Shakedovn—*lll not start in the Doom ben Ten Thousand in Brisbane next month after their failures in the Stradbroke Handicap at Eagle Farm last Saturday. The three-year-old Cyron, which ran last in the Stradbroke, vill stay in Brisbane to spell. He has already been scratched from the Doomben Ten Thousand and the Doomben Cup.