Tri Belle trounces topweights

Press, 4 January 1988, Page 20

Tri Belle trounces topweights

By

J. J. BOYLE

Handicapping “certainties” on paper often fail to produce the expected results. But that was not the case with Tri Belle in the $125,000 Flag Inns Trophy at Ellerslie on Saturday.

Tri Belle went into the race carrying less than scale weight for a four-year-old female and made a good job of preaching to the relatively few unconverted with a thoroughly workmanlike victory. “She’s a real professional racehorse, and only bad luck could have beaten her,” Greg Childs said after he rode Tri Belle to a comfortable length victory over Infinite Secret. This was Tri Belle’s tenth win from 29 starts for Mrs Annie Sarten, the elderly widow of Mr Jim Sarten, who bred the Sir Tristram filly from one of New Zealand’s most distinguished families. Tri Belle’s win on Saturday was worth close to $BO,OOO and advanced her stake earnings past $350,000. “Things like that don’t happen often enough,” Ray Verner, the senior partner in the training of Tri Belle, said after Saturday’s win. Verner felt the turn in the tide of fortunes with Saturday’s win, and the four-year-old’s victor}' in the King’s Plate four days earlier, only provided fitting compensation for the disappointment of an interrupted spring campaign. He had set his sights on the $1 million Cox Plate at Moonee Valley in October, but, soon after Tri

Belle ran a sensational final gallop she was in trouble with a stifle infection, and had to miss a start. After that Mrs Sarten might find little enthusiasm for an autumn campaign aimed for races like the $1 million Tancred Stakes in Sydney. Before then she hopes to return to Ellerslie to see her talented colourbearer run in the Air New Zealand Stakes. Greg Childs had only one moment of anxiety on Saturday. There was little space for him to angle Tri Belle for an inside run from behind Ayla early in the run home. “She tended to lose concentration and balance for a few strides coming off the false rail, but once she was balanced she went to the line strongly,” Childs said. Infinite Secret, Snabben, and Tricavaboy were the principals in a spectacular finish for the minors, and finished in that order, separated by half heads. Infinite Secret made his run from the middle and Snabben and Tricavaboy came from far down the field; Snabben on the outside, and Tricavaboy on a weaving run through the pack. The Riccarton-trained, Auckland-owned, Carnallino Star wound up seventh, and lost little

stature in failing to increase her earnings in such strong company. She drew wide, and the effort required of her to join the leading line made inroads into her reserves sooner than Chris Johnson would have preferred. She still dug in bravely in the straight and though fading close to home wound up seventh, little more than three lengths from the winner. ‘Ladies first’ “Ladies first” was the theme once again in the Qantas Handicap, second leg of the T.A.B. double. Last season’s New Zealand One Thousand Guineas winner, Cure, was sent out a shortpriced favourite, but had to bow to her contemporary, and best-backed rival, Sounds Like Fun. Dark Moments, another four-year-old female and a stablemate of Sounds Like Fun, completed the shut-out of the males by edging Secret Ace away from third. Lance O’Sullivan found the run of the race for Cure, but the favourite came under some pressure on the home turn, and the fact that she lasted for second was more a tribute to her doggedness than to any other quality. Sounds Like Fun was clearly her superior for acceleration, and the ease with which she won added

to the mystification over her lack-lustre run in the Jaguar Plate on the first day of the meeting. One ‘of Sounds Like Fun’s owners, Mr Mark Todd, had contributed to the spectacle of Auckland Cup day with an exhibition of dressage, but before the Jaguar Plate he had hopes of seeing his four-year-old qualifying for a start in the big cup. Dream run for Spyglass Impasada, a stablemate of Cure, extended the list of near misses for the O’Sullivan stable in the $40,000 Auckland' Breeders’ Ladies Mile. But in finishing second, a neck behind Spyglass, she emerged with many of the honours of the race. While Spyglass was able to capitalise on a dream run, on the inside Impasada had been forced, at times, three wide. Mr Eric Hopson’s Desert Gold Stakes winner never gave up trying, and lost little stature in bowing to a filly which was considered unlucky not to pay a dividend in the New Zealand Derby a week earlier. Spyglass will now be aimed for the New Zealand Oaks at Trentham, and could do much of her autumn racing in Sydney. She is trained at Waiuku by Neville Atkins, who campaigned Ring the Belle rewardingly in Sydney in 1981.