Promise of exciting racing

Press, 9 May 1981, Page 24

Promise of exciting racing

Special correspondent Auckland With the programme featuring a further clash of the country’s top three-year-old fillies and a grand lineup in the main race for trotters, the Auckland Trotting Club’s three-night Rowe Cup meeting should get away to a great start at Alexandra Park this evening. Keen interest is also being taken in the Rosso Antico Trotting Stakes, the premier race of the season in the North Island for three-year-old trotters, and the Air New Zealand probationary drivers’ championship. Yvette Bromac, from Matangi, and trie Christchurch pair, Time’s Up and Up Tempo, have established themselves as clearly the season’s best three-year-old pacing fillies. They filled the major placings in the D.B. Flying Fillies Stakes at Alexandra Park last month and is generally expected they will do the same in the McCarthy Ladyship Stakes, the second leg of the T.A.B. double this evening. Yvette Bromac reached a C 8 assessment, a notable achievement for a three-year-old filly, when she staged a whirlwind finish to beat Time’s Up narrowly in the one mile Flying Fillies Stakes. She has not raced since but Time’s Up lined up at Addington last Saturday and broke the New Zealand 2600 m record for three-year-olds.

The performance emphasised the versatility of Time’s Up, although she seems more suited by longer distances than a mile. Yvette Bromac will not be troubled, however, the 2200 m of the McCarthy Ladyship Stakes: she is invariably finishing strongly in her races. Even though Yvette Bromac and Time’s Up are likely to dominate the betting, they have drawn badly. So has Up Tempo. U p-a n d-c ome r s like Tioga’s Lady, Grand Slam and Strident could well have them working very hard if luck in the running does not go the way of the favourites. Form in the Gentry Lodge Free-for-all may not be a good guide to prospects in the $35,000 Rowe Cup next Saturday. The sensational four-year-old, Sir Castleton, will not make his Alexandra Park debut until the second night of the meeting on Wednesday, and nearly all of the leading Rowe Cup contenders in the first leg of the T.A.B. double this evening have drawn awkwardly. The distance is only 2200 m against 3200 m in the “big one.”

With only reasonable passages, Via Volare, No Response, Our Evander, Sure Mart, Thriller Dee, and Cal Brydon look the main chances in what is an extremely open race.