’Dive Bomber is Guineas fancy

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33965, 4 October 1975, Page 8

’Dive Bomber is Guineas fancy

("The Press" Special Service} AUCKLAND. Quickness to a good position counts for much In a 1600 m race anywhere, no less at Ellerslie, and it may well give Dive Bomber an edge over two formidable opponents, Balmerino and March Legend, in the Great Northern Guineas today. Dive Bomber, Balmerino, and March Legend are very good colts, all three. But Balmerino has a habit of taking a little while to work up pace, and March Legend, too. is sometimes a bit slow to get going. In the best two-year-old company Dive Bomber was never at

a loss for speed. One of his top performances was in the Eclipse Stakes, at the Auckland midsummer meeting, when he returned 1:10.8 for 1200 m. He was the closest after Mop when she won the Great Northern Foal Stakes in 1:11.6 and led the chase after Tudor Light when she won the Great Northern Champagne Stakes in 1:10. In keeping with his consistency last season, Dive Bomber has gathered two firsts and a second in his only three races tills season. He had little to spare in the first of his wins, over 1200 m at Te Rapa, but, in the second, he beat March Legend and half a dozen others easily over 1400 m at Te Aroha. It is easy to visualise • Dive Bomber travelling easily up in front, or thereabouts, well before the first turn, even from so wide at the start.

Balmerino looks more a stayer than anything so he has done especially well to win three sprints on end, the latest in the Hawke’s Bay Guineas. But only a very determined late run got him there after he had allowed the pacemaker, Nippy Jim, a big start into the last 200 m. An even bigger effort, probably, will be needed if he is to catch Dive Bomber. TOP-CLASS AT TWO March Legend has all Dive Bomber’s consistency and great ability too, even if unable to hold the other horse at Te Aroha. As a two-year-old March Legend showed early in the piece that he could gallop and from then until the end of the season he came up regularly with topjlass performances. If Dive Bomber, Balmerino, and March Legend all go under vic--ory might go to Thunderchief, a winner in both of his last Thunderchief, certainlv, has not yet met the likes of Dive Bomber, March Legend, and Balmerino. It was impossible, though, not to be greatly impressed by his two wins’, the first, at Avondale, by eight lengths and the second, at Te Aroha, by three. If Dive Bomber wins he will give G. R. Edge his third success in the Great Northern Guineas. J. P. Riordan will be trying for his second when he goes out on March Legend. For Balmerino’s rider, M. R Campbell, it would be a specially notable first because he has not yet had a mount in an Ellerslie Guineas. Campbell is from Awapunl but he has come to be fairly regularly employed by the Cambridge trainer, B. J. Smith, who prepares Balmerino.