Every Show’s win carried stamp of class

Press, 5 September 1983, Page 23

Every Show’s win carried stamp of class

By

J. J. BOYLE

Every Show placed a stamp of quality on Ashburton racing on Saturday with an impressive win fresh up against the sprinters. Show Gate’s second son might have been excused if he had not won. He went into the race without any lead-up gallops but a few weeks of pace work supplied the foundation, and the four-year-old’s brilliance did the rest necessary for a victory at 1200 m. “He’s more relaxed than

he was last season, and that could have accounted for the fact that he was a bit further out of his ground than usual,” Every Show’s Mosgiel owner-trainer, Mr Gordon Thomson, said after Saturday’s win. In this, his eighth win from 16 starts, Every Show showed finishing powers too formidable for Lord La Di Da and Strange Magic, the Riccarton pair most strongly supported of the Otago speedster’s rivals. Every Show’s successful

partner was the Riccarton apprentice, Sharon Reid, who has won five races on him at six attempts. Mr Thomson plans to keep Every Show to sprinting for a good way into the season.

Nem will be the weight-for-age Timaru 1200 m at Washdyke next week, then major sprint races at the New Zealand Cup meeting. Every Show’s elder brother, Sporting Show, was also making a fresh start when he contested the

1600 m Star Time Caterers’ Handicap on Saturday, and he found the demands of the longer distance, run in fast time, beyond him.

He was a well beaten eighth in a race dominated at the end by Sir Ashley, Lord of the Dance, and Up the Creek.

Sir Ashley, the second favourite, hung on doggedly for a neck victory over the faster-finishing Lord of the Dance, which had dropped away into a gap at the tail of the field before half way,

and still looked a 100-to-one chance on the home turn.

This was Sir Ashley’s second win in five days from the Balcairn stable of John Parsons. He has no engagement on the second day of the meeting, but Lord of the Dance will run in the Ashburton Cup tomorrow. So will In the Glen, fourth when favourite in Sir Ashley’s race on Saturday.

In the Glen’s Ashburton Cup rider will be the successful North Island lightweight “Baz” Dowling.