RACING Running Bear Steeples Fancy For Trentham

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31981, 7 May 1969, Page 4

RACING Running Bear Steeples Fancy For Trentham

Running Bear will not achieve the unusual if he wins the Newtown Steeplechase fresh up at Trentham today.

Mrs H. Thompson’s 10-year-old has been away from racing since last August, but he won the Newtown Steeplechase a year ago when having his first start after a long enforced spell.

One of Running Bear’s beaten rivals in this race a year ago was Baudelaire, which finished fourth. The seasoned Grand Coeur, another 10-year-old, will be resuming ’chasing after a placed run on the flat—a close second to His Lordship in the main race at Nelson on April 26. Running Bear might be the superior jumper, but speed and the condition to sustain it should help Grand Coeur to make a bold challenge. The S3OOO Cuddle Stakes will be another attraction on a more interesting programme than the one for the first day of the Wellington meeting last Saturday. Good Record Choucuana and Dormoranne are last-start winners likely to carry heavy betting.

Choucuana improved a versatile record with a last stride win over six furlongs on the first day of the meeting. Three starts earlier she won the Auckland Easter Handicap at' a mile, the distance of today’s race. Dormoranne is held in high regard after wins at her last two starts, and negotiations for her sale to an American owner have been made before and since her latest victory at Woodville. Lisieux, which will be R. J. Skelton’s mount, found pacemaking beyond her in the Gloaming Stakes, but her chance looks brighter at this distance. Strong Finish Cobbler Lane, a stronglyfinishing sixth after a slow start at six furlongs last Saturday, should be a force at a mile. She was runner-up to Havering in this race last year, and she was in a stronger field than today’s when she won over seven furlongs at the Waikato spring meeting. Cobbler Lane is trained by L. W. Ford, who has a

notable percentage of wins to starts with members of his team at Trentham.

Two more form runners for the Ford stable today are the two-year-olds Gay Cindy and Ruelle. They will meet in the Courtenay Handicap which, with the hurdles, makes up the on-course concession double.