Powley records her eighth successive win

Press, 30 December 1980, Page 14

Powley records her eighth successive win

From

J.J. Boyle

Timaru

Powley yesterday gave another taste of her class in winning' the South Canterbury Jockey Club’s Show Gate Stakes, for which she was a raging favourite.

Back on the course where she won her first race in September, for a return of SB3O she earned S5OOO and wasted little time in doing so in yesterdays feature race for three-year-old fillies. Mr Hector Anderton’s brilliant bay is now a winner of 8 races from nine starts and has earned $52,265. She hurried over the 1600 m yesterday in Imin 36-2S’ inviting a comparison with the Imin 36.8 s recorded by The Twinkle in winning the . weight-for-age Timaru Cup over the same distance on Saturday. Powley started from the outside of a field of ten and was quickly in front leaving her best backed rival, The Dimple, one of the closest of the others. The course commentator raised the hopes of

isome of the unobservant, the l blind and the blinkered when he excitedly announced that The Dimple was mounting a big challenge against Powley near the home turn. The Southland filly certainly got'close but only on sufferance. When Michael Casey kicked Powley along the young Wingatui star quickly went clear again. Close to home The Dimple, which had sweated up before the race, lost second to the Ricca’ton trained Just From Santa. The others were beaten off. Powley’s winning margin was a length and three-quar-ters, the third narrowest in her eight successive victories. Her winning margins in those races have aggregated about 33 lenghts. Powley’s owner-trainer Hector Anderton, aged 75,

•jhas recently had a spell in and did not join the -I crowd for yesterday’s bird j cage ceremony. He watched • the race from near the r saddling stalls and said later ■ that the New Zealand Oaks > at Trentham will now be the . big mission for the filly. 1 “Bob Skelton has assured ; me he will be there for that t one and to ride Mellseur in : the George Adams,” he said I yesterday. , Blue Sage was another i successful favourite on the . short list of main races on yesterday’s programme. i After three unplaced runs in ■ the North Island she was brought back to Riccarton 11 days- ago because her connections were afraid of I more rain-affected tracks in Auckland. Her all-the-way ■ win in the Gordon’s Handi- , cap yesterday was the ele-

■th of her career. In seven iof those victories she has j been ridden by Mich tel Mein ibut that Riccarton jockey will switch to Miles Better in the Waikouati Cup on Thursday. Sharebroker, a close second in the sprint on the first day of the meeting was unchallenged to win the A. J. Parris Handicap first leg of yesterdays T.A.B. double. The Ashburton trained chestnut sped into a clear lead early in the race and won by a length and a quarter from the fast-finishing favourite, Flying View. Flying View the each way favourite was eased to the rear from the start and was left with a hopeless chase when Sharebroker bustled away from his closest rivals in the middle stages.