Firpo headed but came again

Press, 14 August 1978, Page 20

Firpo headed but came again

Firpo became the biggest;] single contributor to the I record of Riccarton-trained j horses at the Grand National , meeting when he triumphed i in a spectacular three-sided 1 finish to the Islington Handi- j cap on Saturday. One of few runners for the New Zealand Derby win- • ner. Pep. the Greymouth- ( owned five-year-old had . finished a close second to , Jolt on the second day of the meeting, but he was still ; at double-figure odds when' be inched out the two bestbacked runners, Duty Point and Charlson, in the first leg of Saturday’s T.A.B. double. Firpo is trained by Tom I.alor. for Mr Cliff Marsh, of Greymouth, who was a successful boxer and named his home-bred after a ring champion. Graeme Mein, a replacement for the suspended! David Walsh, found the best!

possible run for Firpo and brought him to the front past Jolt up the straight. But he was not sanguine of success at the 200 m. "He was headed at the furlong, but kicked again, and was going better at the end than he had been a little earlier,” Mein said. Duty Point made a promising first showing at the distance in his class. “He saw daylight a little too early and pulled pretty hard,” said his rider, M. j. Sloan. Ron McCann, who was substituting for the suspended Steve Allen as rider ( of Charlson, had high hopes early in the run home. He had to ease the topweight off the heels of another runner near the 1000 m, but brought the topweight into a contending position on the outside of Duty Point with time to ispare. “He was bolting at I the furlong, but just battled

I after that,” McCann com-, l mented. Kanga’s Lad, a short-, f priced favourite, interrupted s'a sequence of South Island successes on the programme 1 sby winning the August 1 i Handicap decisively. The Hastings six-year-old seemed, likely to run into - bother alongside the rails e when Diamond Pal shifted e ground early in the run □ ihome. But Nigel Tiley had v time to switch to a new line L of running on Kanga’s Lad. and the favourite finished s generously to win going - away by three parts of a r; length. s Stewards warned Diamond Pal’s rider, M. W. Blackley, i- of his obligations to keep - his mount straight. e Head Planet, trying for a i- second win at the meeting, g had to settle for a fairly disf tant third this time, but was o in no danger of losing that it position to the second d favourite Prodigal (fourth).