Solveig set for 4th straight win

Press, 6 December 1985, Page 26

Solveig set for 4th straight win

Special correspondent Auckland Solveig will seek to embellish her already fine record with a further win at the Te Aroha Jockey Club’s meeting tomorrow. Her success, again, would represent, on more than one count, a most notable performance. To begin with it seems certain that whatever is to win the L.P.A. Potter Stakes will be required to turn in a very fast time for the 1600 m. Then again, Solveig is required under the weight-for-age conditions to give 3kg apiece to three very good younger horses, Anteaus, Field Dancer and Hot Ice. She should hold her older opponents well enough, getting weight from all of them. Also, there are two other four-year-olds, Kingdom Bay and Free Zone, but the three-year-olds, Hot Ice especially, could be very troublesome. Solveig has three straight wins to her credit, each in very quick time: 1:8.30 and 1:09.63 for 1200 m at Pukekohe and Avondale and 1:33.66 for 1600 m at Ellerslie. Add her Oaks win at Trentham last summer and several other fine performances last season and there is no doubt that Solveig is a mare of very high class. Through this one in good form and she will become favourite with Eastern Joy for the Lion Avondale Cup

next Wednesday. Hot Ice and Anteaus will be going for the Avondale Guineas next week. For each this should prove a valuable and enlightening preliminary. Hot Ice rivals Solveig with his recent record of three wins in a row and all through he has been wonderfully consistent, hardly ever failing to weigh-in.

At Avondale Hot Ice will be called on, over 2000 m, to show the strength of his staying qualities. Meanwhile, tomorrow’s 1600 m must give him an excellent chance to carry on in winning form. He has already shown himself very good at the distance.

In his very latest attempt Hot Ice went the 1600 m of the Waikato Guineas in 1:33.53, a Te Rapa record. While possessed of such speed he is sufficiently relaxed to run smoothly just off the pace, and from his favourable barrier position he seems certain to be very prominent.

Anteaus and Field Dancer, both from the Waikato, last raced at Riccarton, during the New Zealand Cup meeting, and with very considerable credit. Anteaus, in his last start, won the 2000 m weight-for-age Canterbury Gold Cup and, the previous time, finished fourth in the Feltex New Zealand Two Thousand Guineas (1600 m won by

Random Chance from Field Dancer. Field Dancer, before Riccarton, was runner-up to Hot Ice over 1400 m, at Te Rapa, pressing the other horse close. Hot Ice, though, carried the heavier weight by 2.5 kg and on that form can be expected to hold Field Dancer again. Field Dancer looks a good prospect, nevertheless, to get some of the money. Anteaus has to be respected but his chance could be better over the longer distance at Avondale. Kingdom Bay, last year’s winner of. the Potter Stakes, was below his best form when he last raced in Melbourne during the past spring. His resilience has been well tested and found at times to be remarkable. It will be a further mark of Kingdom Bay’s quality if he wins and a popular swan song, as he is to be retired straight afterwards for breeding.