Talented Canty mares for N.Z. Messenger Stakes

Press, 2 December 1985, Page 37

Talented Canty mares for N.Z. Messenger Stakes

By

JEFF SCOTT

The talented mares, Saucy Star and Quiet Touch, will continue with plans to contest the $BO,OOO TNT New Zealand Messenger Championship this month, while Tuapeka Wreka will be staying at home, after racing at the Geraldine Trotting Club’s meeting at Orari on Saturday. Saucy Star, a D.B. Flying Fillies heat winner at Alexandra Park in April and also a juvenile winner in the

north when trained at Frankton by Sue Branch, notched her fourth win from five starts from lan Cameron’s Fernside team when she won the D.B. Geraldine Trust Cup in fine style. Cameron moved the halfsister to the former fine juvenile, Saucy Wave, up to the lead on a slack pace at the 2200 m, then steadied to trail Tuapeka Wreka some 200 m later. Off the fence in the third line at the 600 m, the Smooth Fella—Sundown

Girl mare finished too smartly for the backmarker, Regal Nugent, which had moved up to dispute the pace three wide into the straight, to win by a length and a quarter. Cameron, who brought up his eleventh training success (seven individual winners) for the term, prepares Saucy Star for his father-in-law, Laurie Stratford, Cameron’s sister-in-law, Fay, a Hamilton veterinary surgeon, Len Smith, and his wife, Dale.

Cameron was high in his S raise for Saucy Star after le win, her first start since finishing fourth to Loveridge, Master Mood and Samson in the D.B. Superstar Final at Addington in ' September. Not taking anything away from two other fine mares in his stable, Delark (eight wins), and another Smooth Fella mare, Montrose (Imin 57.45), Cameron rates his latest star superior to those well-performed racemares.

“She relaxes and is a real racehorse,” Cameron said. Sure He Can is a likely companion for Saucy Star on the Auckland trip. Regal Nugent, runner-up in the race for the second successive year, was a length and a quarter clear of the Waikouaiti Cup winner, Hugo Porta, which rallied strongly late after being back on the inner to the home turn to get up for

third, a nose in front of Venus Boy, which had moved up three wide near the lead from the 800 m and hit the front 600 m out.

Tuapeka Wreka, beaten into the straight, faded to ninth, with his trainer, Ross Payne, later declaring the Noodlum entire a nonstarter in the Messenger. “He had to win today. There’s still plenty of wins in him, but really, racing against the likes of Loveridge and Nardinski is like racing against Cup horses,” he said.

Quiet Touch, which appeared top material for the fillies’ classics last season, before being sidelined with injury after just one start, was in a class of her own in the C. S. Stevens Group Pace, dashing clear from a handy spot on the home turn to win as she liked by four lengths. Raced by Messrs Wayne Francis (of Nevele R Stud), Malcolm Shinn and the president of the Waikouaiti Trotting Club, Mr Barry Barber, the Boyden Hanover—Queen to Be mare is prepared at West Melton by lan Shinn, who trained the 1983 Messenger winner, Nostradamus, of which Mr Francis is a part-owner. Quiet Touch, a three&';er sister to the illNew Zealand Oaks and D.B. Fillies Final winner, Preferred, leaves for Auckland on Thursday a C2 pacer, but likely to im-

prove that score at the Thames meeting next Saturday and the following Friday, before the two lead-up nights of the Auckland Trotting Club proceeding the Messenger on December 27. “She’s a real nice mare,” her driver, Colin de Filippi, said, suitably impressed with the performance. De Filippi, who also drove Southern Raider to win on Saturday, plans to campaign Our Mana, at the Auckland Christmas meeting. The leading junior reinsman, Anthony Butt, moved into second equal place alongside fellow Cantabrian, Michael de Filippi, on the drivers’ premiership to this stage of the season by guiding Lorfay a narrow but comfortable winner of the Dalgety Crown Handicap, after being back on the outer to the home turn.

Having also won with Kahu Del the previous night at Manawatu, Butt took his season’s tally to 21, joining de Filippi, who was out of luck on Saturday, while the pair are 10 behind the season’s leader, Tony Herlihy.

Herlihy, after notching three at Manawatu on Tuesday, went without a win at Manawatu and Wyndham over the week-end to remain on 31.

Butt had earlier brought up his hundredth career win behind Lordic (an older brother of Lorfay) at the beginning of November.