Hunter Team In Good Form

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31785, 16 September 1968, Page 6

Hunter Team In Good Form

*‘Th« Press” Special Service WELLINGTON. G. B. Noble has made many successful raids on Hutt Park in the past with members of his Roydon Lodge team but on Saturday night it was the Wellington branch of the stable that took the honours. C. S. Hunter, last season’s top trainer, who is now in America campaigning a team, was represented by two winners, Praesidium and Marbryn. Marbryn won the second leg of the T.A.B. double, the City Handicap, but Praesidium stole the limelight. Praesidium formed a threehorse bracket with the Nobletrained pair. General Frost and Bewitched, and they made it a notable night for Roydon Lodge by filling the first three placing? with only half a head between each of them.

The last occasion on which a bracket filled the first three placings was at Greymouth on October 19, 1966, when

the Weedons trainer, P. C. Williams, had Copper Wire, Resistor’s Sister and Wire Wound, in the Brunner Handicap. C. C. Devine, who featured at Hutt Park on Saturday night with two winners, Richard Hanover and Vandal, has also taken the trick when Van Rush, Raft and Young Dieman scooped the pool in the Pacific Handicap at Addington on February 15, 1964. Praesidium, a four-year-old gelding by Garrison Hanover out of Maid Myra, may not have the illustrious breeding of Bewitched and General Frost but he has the ability. With Bewitched pocketed on the fence, General Frost and Praesidium were the big hopes to pull the bracket through. They were battling it out 30 yards from the post when Bewitched worked into the clear and dived at them. In the City Handicap, the Hunter-Harding combination — the latter is the stable reinsman—completed the main double with Marbryn, which has now recorded three of his five wins on the course.

Marbryn led all the way, and Harding only had to keep him going in the straight to hold off Happy Hal comfortably by three-quarters of a length. Richard Hanover had the perfect trail in the first leg,

the Roydon Restricted Free-for-all. Devine, for whom the winning run was marred by a $2O fine for driving with his feet out of the rests, gave Richard Hanover the run of the race behind Light Silk. At one stage it looked as If he would be pocketed, but a gap came when Trafalgar moved out on the home turn and Devine was quick to take advantage of it. The race was all over when the win favourite, Beat Time,

came on the scene wide out to take second from Landlord by half a head. Beat Time was four places back on the outside going down the back for the last time and was forced four and five wide when making his run on the turn. Landlord bad had the best run of any apart from the winner, and battled on well. Light Silk, although weakening, went a surprisingly good race for fourth considering he had not started since March last year.