Fleetwood Mac likely to race at Trentham

Press, 22 May 1978, Page 18

Fleetwood Mac likely to race at Trentham

Trentham at its heaviest} tn July should not daunt Fleetwood Mac, the Wintonowned and trained winner of the first leg of the Hororata Racing Club’s T.A.B. double at Riccarton on Saturday.

Mrs Pauline Wright’s four-year-old came out best in a battling finish with Arapeta and Charlson on a heavy track, wiifning by half a length, a margin he was steadily widening at the end. Fleetwood Mac is a halfbrother by Woodfield to Polly Porter, the top South Island three-year-old filly this season.

Carron Howe, dam of Fleetwood Mac and Polly Porter, was a gift to Mrs Wright, and the fruits of that gesture have already been bounteous, and should continue to mount.

Fleetwood Mac was back" ed down to second favouritism on Saturday. Ron Weaver, who rode him at half a kilogram overweight, had the four-year-old in good position to make the last run at Charlson and Arapeta. He was not hopeful for a time near the home turn, but Fleetwood Mac seemed to take on a new

lease of life for him, and his late charge proved irresistible.

Arapeta beat Charlson by a long neck for second, but none of the others was concerned in the finish. Charlson was a dominating favourite, and might have completed a double for the week had he not been left in front a good way from home.

The Invercargill owned and trained Charlson is also likely to be at Trentham in July, to renew rivalry with Fleetwood Mac in races like the Parliamentary Handicap.

I Canterbury-trained horses, while very much ' overshadowed in middle distance races on the circuit, salvaged some respectability in the sprints. Capital, Ernest, and Gotta Go, all from Riccarton stables, filled the first three places in the second leg of Saturday’s T.A.B. double.

Capital, the seventh favourite of 16, won the Gilbey’s Handicap by three lengths from Ernest with the favourite Gotta Go hard by in third place. Capital is raced from the Thistoll stable by Messrs

i Cecil Devine, M. R. Miller, and G. E. Wilkie, and has won six races for them inside 12 months.

Capital is a four-year-old gelding by Sovereign Prince drom Vinous, winner of three races and grand-daugh-ter of Vin d’Honneur, the winner of four races and runner-up in the New Zealand Oaks. This is a branch of the famous Eulogy family which has come up with the good winners Varnamo and Persuasian in recent years.