Going Smooth wins Fillies’ Heat

Press, 23 February 1987, Page 28

Going Smooth wins Fillies’ Heat

Special correspondent Invercargill Going Smooth, which might have been swapped as a yearling for a valuable collection of stamps, but for a veterinary report which held out little hope of her later standing much training, led her rivals a merry all-the-way chase in the $13,000 Invercargill heat of the D.B. Export Flying Fillies’ series at Invercargill on Saturday. The daughter of outstanding sire Smooth Fella and Good Going (eight wins) shut her rivals out with an invincible display of frontrunning, pacing her last 800 m in 60.5 s and her

closing 400 m in 295, for a mile clocking of 2:01.96. David Butt, her youthful West Melton trainerdriver was able to call all the shots when Tender Loving Miss, which drew No. 1 at the barrier, broke in the run up and took no part From that point, the feature race for three-year-old fillies belonged to Going Smooth. Going Smooth’s task was made easier when the favourite, Young Eden, was left “pegged out to dry” three wide. Not surprisingly, her finishing run was dulled. However, Young Eden did well to finish third, losing second placing in the dying stages to Nellie

Doon. Going Smooth is raced by her breeder, Mr Eddy van Esperen, a Balclutha real estate salesman, who outlaid $l4OO to buy her dam, Good Going, at the 1975 National yearling sales. Mr van Esperen, who is attached to Elders Pastoral in Balclutha, had earlier tried the moderately performed Lord Siri, bought privately as a yearling for $6OO, with Harry Cox, of Winton.

Mr van Esperen, keen to buy a filly which might later have some breeding potential, commissioned Cox’s son, Alistair (“Colonel”) to select a filly up to $l5OO at the

1975 sales in Christchurch.

Cox did well to snap up Good Going, a filly by the Tar Heel horse, Smooth Hanover, from Scotomy’s branch of the Rosalie family, for $l4OO. Good Going, which later won eight races and took a mile record of 1:59.1, is closely-related to Regal Light (11 wins and 1:58.2), Zhivago (1:58), Coringa Lady (1:56), and Sydney James (eight wins). Good Going is a halfsister to Key Miss, the winner of seven races and 19 times placed and the dam of Jay Bee’s Fella, runner-up to Arden Meadow in the 1986 West Australian Pacing Derby.