Bound to Honour top chance in N.Z. Oaks

Press, 30 January 1982, Page 19

Bound to Honour top chance in N.Z. Oaks

By

W. R. CARSTON

There is no way Noble Heights’s position as the top points scorer in the Wrightson “Filly of the Year" series can be disturbed by the outcome of the New Zealand Oaks Stakes at Trentham today. But if predictions prove correct and victory in the Wellington Racing Club’s $40,000 classic goes to Bound to Honour she could well move into second spot in the series in the chase after Noble Heights. A win today for Bound to Honour in this, the eighth contest in the 10-race series, would earn the Te Awamututrained filly 25 points and bring her total for the series to date to 34.75 points. That would still leave her far behind Noble Heights, at present sitting on 60 points, and with only a slight edge on Julia, the current runnerup with 34 points.

Julia, whose . form has slumped dramatically in two starts since she won the

Eulogy Stakes at Awapuni last month, will be among Bound to Honour’s rivals today, so will Gold Raider, which will be striving to improve on her position of fourth on the present table with 12.5 points.

Bound to Honour, from the powerful Bill Sanders stable, seems to have all the right credentials to run out the testing 2400 m of the Oaks as well as any and better than most.

Bound to Honour’s record this season includes three victories at 1600 m and several notable placings at that distance and beyond. Three of those placings which have brought her into strong reckoning for today’s race were thirds. Bound to Honour filled that position behind the dual Derby winner, Isle of Man, and Loughanure in the Waikato Guineas, was the best behind the ill-fated pair, Altitude and Special Devil, in the IZH Guineas Trial, also at Te Rana, and only two

starts back chased Noble Heights and Big Deal home over 2000 m in the Royal Stakes at Ellerslie. That run by Big Deal and a subsequent victory in a 1600 m handicap at Avondale meantime must bring her into reckoning for today’s event but no more so than Gold Raider, which has found victory elusive this season but has some notable placed runs on her record. One of those was a second to Noble Heights in the Lowland Stakes at Masterton back in October and another was when she chased Julia home in the Eulogy Stakes at Awapuni on December 19. Gold Raider invariably runs her races out strongly, as she did at her latest attempt when she came from the rear to run Daisy to a length in the Pahiatua Weight-for-age Stakes (2000 m at Woodville on January 13.

Amrica, which resumed with a second among the sprinters at Hastings earlier

this month and was having her third start in a fresh campaign when she made a brilliant late dab to win last Saturday’s Wellington Stakes, will also be high on the list of fancied runners. The only others likely to come in for serious consideration are the last-start winners, Glydavari and Maurita. This will be the lone race at the meeting for the Ric-carton-trained Glydavari. She earned a tilt at Oaks honours by winning the Timaru Racing Club’s Show Gate Stakes last time out. Maurita, from Jim Gibbs's Matamata stable, faces her toughest task yet but her form, a third and two middle distance victories — the most recent in the Hutt Handicap on this course last Monday — from only three starts is hard to disregard. The New Zealand Oaks Stakes will be the first leg of today’s T.A.B. treble. The other legs will be City and Kelburn Handicaps.