Popular question: Copper Belt or Silver Wraith?

Press, 15 April 1978, Page 20

Popular question: Copper Belt or Silver Wraith?

Special correspondent Auckland I Whether Copper Bek, for ) all his great quality, will' he j able to give the brilliant I three-year-old Silvei Wraith ; 3.5 kg is a popular question ■ I that will be answered at' II auranga today. The two horses, Copper) ) Belt, a six-year-old from Ha-! [wera, and Silver Wraith, a! three-year-old from Cam- ) bridge, are two of some ) half-dozen horses in the Bay |of Plenty Racing Club’s ) Stars Travel Stakes which i should make the race worth [going a long way to see. ) ; Under the weight-for-age | conditions Copper Belt is set to carry 57.5 kg. Silver I Wraith, 54kg. Copper Belt j

had no trouble beating the three-year-olds which opposed him last year — Vice Regal and Lumley Lass — but he will very likely find Silver Wraith a tougher proposition. Greek Magic and Shivareei are other three-year-olds) with which Copper Belt will have to contend. Altogether! thair age group is impres-! sively strong. Si: ,er Wraith and Greek Magic are unusually quick, Shivaree not as fast to start with, but a most resolute finisher. As he did in the All-Aged Stakes at Avondale last Friday. Greek Magic will very likely make the pace. It will then be a question of whether, through the quite testing run home, he is able to keep Silver Wraith,

)| Copper Belt and the others • [at bay. 1 Silver Wraith won the ARC Easter Handicap two, I starts back and ran the ■I 1400 m at Avondale so.) ;strongly that it is hard to' Hbelieve Greek Magic 'vill| i|hold him over today’s 1600. The distance should suit) ■[Shivaree. which came third! ■I in the Easter at Ellerslie,: and it is probably Copper; Belt’s best, even .if three of his last four wins, all in a . row, were over 1400. ■ Last time Copper Belt i raced was when he won a ; 1400 m event at Awapuni on : April 1 under 59kg. He took i the Lion Brown Sprint, a ■ weight-for-age 1400 m race at i Te Rapa the time before, ; after winning Wellington’s . George Adams Handicap

lover 1600 and a 1400 m at (Awapuni. i The performance by Cop-i ; per Beit in the George; i Adams was first-class. And; [he could not have impressed’ Waikato racegoers more (when winning te Rapa’s big) sprint. ! Carlaw, another six-year--(old. and the five-year-old.) ) March Legend, are other! prospects for some of the big stake, and Aghios Nikalaos, even if at a dis-[ advantage at weight-for-age, compared with his rating for an open handicap, has to be! given some consideration. If Copper Belt is successful he will be the first horsein the 10 years the race has! been run-, to take the Stars Trave! Stakes twice on end.l Duty Free won it twice, but! with a year in between, and! Game went as close' as pos- j sible without taking the double when first in 1970 and second the following year, behind Kirrama. Two three-year-olds-, Kirrama and Happy Union (1976), have already won the Stgrs Travel Stakes, but the preponderance of success has been with the five-year-olds and six-year-olds which have won six races among them. The distance being shorter nowadays might, help bring an improvement in the record of the three-year-olds. To begin with the course ■ was 10| furlongs, then its metric equivalent until last year when it was reduced to 1600 m. Sixteen hundred metres at Tauranga with a good, long run to the first turn, makes for a better race than 2100 m - where the runners are so ' quickly to the bend. ; Certainly the contest last = year, with Copper Belt storming home to beat Grey Way and Battle Eve, was a thriller, and the one today! promises to be no less ex-1 citing.