Tabella Beth strongly fancied tonight

Press, 5 August 1983, Page 22

Tabella Beth strongly fancied tonight

Special correspondent Auckland Tabella Beth has shown such fine form lately that she is sure to be a pronounced favourite in the Cambridge Trotting Cup tonight. Sponsored by Radio IZH, the race has drawn a decidedly useful field of inter-mediate-class pacers and will provide Tabella Beth with her stiffest test so far. However, her dual success at the Auckland Club’s meeting which ended last Saturday, indicated strongly she had a good way to go before she reached her limit. On the second night, July 23, she cleared right away over the final stages of a C2 race and scored by four

lengths in 2min 50.9 s for 2200 m. She looked to be hopelessly placed in a C 3 and C 4 event over the same distance last Saturday, being back on the inner at the 600 m and seemingly having no chance of working clear in time. Tabella Beth accelerated brilliantly when her driver, David Butcher, did manage to get her into the open and was travelling so fast towards the end that she scored decisively by a length and a half. Her time of 2min 48.9 s easily bettered the previous national record for a three-year-old filly, Hilarious Guest’s 2min 51.65. It was Tabella Beth’s third win in her last four races — in the other, she

was a very unlucky fourth in a flying mile. Braedoon, a member of Robert Dunn’s stable at West Melton, looks like providing the main opposition with Scotch Trick, Gene Evander and Vivid Rainbow also entitled to serious consideration.

Braedoon had a good run for a change and it took a good horse, Direct Kiwi, to beat him in a 2700 m race at Alexandra Park last Saturday. He lost by only a short neck.

Scotch Trick faces a stiff assignment off 20m — he has to give Tabella Beth that much start and Braedon 10m — but it will be surprising if he does not give another solid account of himself.

He made most of the pace in the Thom E.M.I. Handicap at Alexandra Park last Saturday and only just failed to hold off Braedoon for second.

Since he joined Peter Wolfenden’s team, a month or so ago, Scotch Trick has compiled the remarkably consistent score of three wins, two seconds and two thirds from seven attempts. Harrison Minor is likely to be an even hotter favourite than Tabella Beth when he contests the second leg of the T.A.B. double, the Bye Bye Song Mobile Stakes. Apart from Chorus Line, he is the only horse in the field which has won a race, and Chorus Line has not started since last December.