BRILLIANT Tassie chaser Rewind was back on the track that almost gave him Group One glory.
In December last year he was beaten a nose by current Australian GOTY Dyna Tron in the Hobart Thousand and last night he took his first step to winning the Group One Tattsbet National Sprint Final on Saturday August 25.
He mustered speed quickly from the black and used most of the back straight to edge past Bane and sister Clyde’s Angel on the first corner, however once in front he powered away to win by six in a respectable 26.14.
Trainer Maurie Strickland was pleased with the run and believes he should be cherry ripe for next week’s final but admits he would rather be drawn in eight than the three.
Track record holder Bergermeister recorded the fastest sprint heat time with an emphatic nine length victory in 26.01.
Bergermeister brought up win number twelve on the spacious Hobart circuit and will certainly prove hard to beat if he can sight the lure early.
The Mick Stringer kennel also has New Recruit lining up in this week’s final after a polished display in beating the consistent Irinka Julia.
After crossing the field on the first bend he set up a race winning lead to record a race time of 26.16 which was the third quickest of the five heats and has the luxury of jumping from the pink again.
This son of Paddy’s Flame has a 50% win strike rate on the track and will be definitely be in the market.
Other sprint winners included the Ted Medhurst trained Speed Direct (26.33) who will jump from two and may cause Rewind some headaches, and Gatty Com (26.44) who was perhaps a tad lucky, or perhaps Rob Pines was a tad unlucky not to win the last heat.
Rob Pines is a talented pup and Queensland owner Craig Cassidy was delighted with drawing one in the Final.
TATTSBET TASMANIAN
NATIONAL SPRINT FINAL:
Box 1 Rob Pines, Box 2 Speed Direct, Box 3 Rewind, Box 4 Gatty Com
Box 5 Bergermeister, Box 6 Irinka Julia, Box 7 Shanlyn Poh, Box 8 New Recruit
1st Res. Clyde’s Angel, 2nd Res. Katsidis.
Review by Peter Hayes