Chance for unusual double

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33046, 13 October 1972, Page 1 (Supplement)

Chance for unusual double

The Orari trainer, L. H. Pratt, has material to capture an unusual double on his home course tomorrow. Pratt will embark the talented galloper, Zarnia, on her open-class career in the Stewards’ Handicap, second leg of the Geraldine Racing Club’s T.A.B. double. And Zarnia’s elder brother, Lloyd, will be one of two stable runners in the first leg, the Charles McDonald Memorial. Lloyd is being stepped up to a middle distance after two placed runs against the sprinters at Ashburton last month.

There is a well-defined pattern running through his season-by-season records — that he is a force to be reckoned with in any com-

pany in the spring. He was good enough to win the Canterbury Jockey Club’s Members’ Handicap (7f) as a four-year-old. Lloyd’s only win last season was in the open sprint at this meeting a year ago. One win a season does not fulfil the high promise Lloyd showed earlier, but the chestnut’s performances for

a third and a fourth at Ashburton last month hardly argued that he is a spent force; rather that with a bit of age on him an experimental step up to a middle distance might be very rewarding. Meneleus, the other runner for the Pratt stable in the Charles McDonald Memorial, rates earnest consideration

By

J. J. Boyle

after a third behind Totara Maid and Trelay in the Geraldine Cup last month. He has 7-7, 21b less than Lloyd. With Bright Girl (7-8) also claiming some attention after her close second in the Ashburton Cup, it seems certain that the topweight Ribaldo will be heavily engaged at the end of a mile and a quarter on a small track. At this stage, Ribaldo is Canterbury’s strongest hope for the New Zealand Cup on November 4, and if he manages to win with some authority under 8-12 in this field and on a course not likely to show him to the best advantage, he will go well up the list of fancies for the Riccarton two-miler.