Janet’s Boy to regain form

Press, 16 July 1983, Page 19

Janet’s Boy to regain form

PA Matamata One of the top weights, Janet’s Boy, and Otakiri Maid, which is on the minimum, make most appeal in the first leg of the T.A.B. double at the Matamata Racing Club’s meeting today. The race is the Guinness Wines and Spirits Handicap, a 2030 m event for the good stake of $9OOO. The field includes a Stratford visitor, Out in Front, and Really True, which will be trying for his fourth straight win. Local representation at Matamata meetings is traditionally strong, but, remarkably, Janet’s Boy is the only acceptor for the Guinness Handicap trained on the course.

He is prepared by Dave O’Sullivan, who, in partnership with his son, Paul, has saddled more winners on the course than any other trainer. Janet’s Boy finished only ninth last time, in the Owens Trophy at Tauranga on June 25, but will find this company more manageable. He was a close second to Appendix the time before, at Wanganui on June 4. In terms of finishing positions, that ninth represented Janet’s Boy’s worst run in a career of 20 starts. Most times he has been in the money, so perhaps he was not quite himself at Tauranga, the better opposition not withstanding. Otakiri Maid is a three-year-old filly which has

worked her way attractively through the grades and now looks ready to tackle a class one event, such as this. She finished stoutly, as she usually does, for second to Really True at Rotorua on July 1. She won at the last Matamata meeting, in May, and in her one true middle-distance attempt to date ran second in a 2100 m race at Tauranga. Really True is entitled to solid support for he is at a high peak of form and clearly under-rated. It is rare, though, for a galloper to win four handicaps on end in the north. Out in Front burst to prominence when she beat Alley Oop in the Cuddle Stakes at Trentham in May. She has not been in the

same form since, but her trainer, Dick Bothwell, would hardly travel from Stratford unless he expected better form from her. The field for the second leg of the double, the Radio Forestland 1400, looks stronger over all than the first. Tom Thumb won most convincingly at Ellerslie on June 29. He and stablemate, Derbin, have struck winning form almost simutaneously, Derbin having scored at Trentham on Wednesday. It will be surprising if Tom Thumb does not run prominently again, but he can expect plenty of opposition from the likes of Anderil, Rua Whero, Penny Dee, Indian Game and Affaire d’Honneur.