Fine record on course

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33094, 8 December 1972, Page 1 (Supplement)

Fine record on course

The Riccarton record of the Wingatui mare, Smart Mellay, carries the stamp of excellence, and will probably assure her of favouritism when she reappears there in the Hororata Cup tomorrow.

Smart Mellay won her first race at the Hororata meeting at Riccarton two years ago, and on each return visit she has campaigned consistently and at times brilliantly. She gave Young Ida one of her hardest races in the New Zealand Oaks just over a year ago, returned to Riccarton to

By

J. J. Boyle

win the Midsummer Handicap (l|m.) in February, and on her latest campaign in Canterbury, at the New Zealand Cup meeting last month, she recaptured winning form in the mile Jockey Club Handicap. In the meantime, she has kept her splendid record moving with a fourth in the Canterbury Jockey Club’s Churchill Stakes, and a stylish win against the milers at Beaumont last Saturday. Well weighted With such a background Smart Mellay should be well fitted for the step up to a mile and a quarter in the Hororata Cup. She has 8-4, or 51b less than scale weight for a four-year-old female, and from the inside barrier position she should be in the best position in the running to capitalise on her ability to find sharp acceleration. Smart Mellay is second topweight, 11b below the reliable Ribaldo. Ribaldo showed his hardy qualities in New Zealand Cup week finishing a programme of three races with a fourth in the Metropolitan after having started with a fifth in the New Zealand Cup. His third race at the meeting was over the Hororata Cup distance of a mile and a quarter in the Canterbury Gold Cup. Here he was unable to cope with the demands of a blistering pace and was a well-beaten seventh. The three-year-old Dhow

■ showed in more favourable light than Ribaldo that day, finishing a respectable fifth. In the meantime Dhow has run third in the New Zealand Oaks; earlier she had won the New Zealand Guineas at Trentham. Obviously she will have the respect of everyone from her place amongst the light-weights. There are several others with form to command respect. Apart from Smart Mellay, the Otago challenge, with Foxy, Annenic, and Crusade in the field, will be formidable. Golden Sam has the class and versatility to come back from a staying programme and have a good try at sprint honours in the Gordons Handicap, second leg of the T.A.B. double. Golden Sam might find the three-year-olds, His Bestone Surge Again, and Jury, three of his more formidable rivals.