In Brief
- Todd Rattray achieves milestone win.
- Young pacer beats older and experienced horses.
- Two horses break their maiden status.
Longford reinsman Todd Rattray notched up a milestone win in the sulky in Hobart last night, when he scored in the Carlton Draught Pace aboard Delightful Junie who he also trains.
It was win number 650 for Rattray who had his first race drive on September 24, 2006, in Launceston.
Delightful Junie, a seven-year-old mare by Jr Mint had only won three of 36 starts before last night’s win, but she was second-up in the care of Rattray after her former trainer and owner Shaun Kennedy transferred the horse to Rattray’s Longford stables.
“Shaun was having trouble juggling his few horses and Uni and wanted some help, at the time we had a few horses in work and knocked him back but a few weeks after there was room for her and he was delighted with the win,” said Rattray.
From barrier three Rattray positioned the mare one-out and one-back in the 2090 metre event before peeling three-wide at the 700-metre mark.
“She slid in alright at the start and had a good run, I probably went a bit hard down the back, but she wanted to run, so I let her, she still had the earplugs in at the finish,” said Rattray.
It is rare to see a two-year-old defeat the older and more experienced horses, but with the new national rating system that seems to be slightly changing nationally.
The latest winner to add to that list is the Heath Woods trained and driven filly Stepping Stones who scored in the Rexel North Hobart Pace for horses with a national rating of 30 to 49 over 1609 metres.
Instead of heading to a two-year-old maiden event in Launceston worth just under double the prize-money on Sunday, Woods elected to stay a bit closer to home.
“We knew we would draw well in the first two or three over the mile, plus she isn’t a good traveller so we thought we would keep her down here with the same routine,” said the Broadmarsh based trainer.
From barrier one, Woods positioned the filly behind the leader before using the sprint lane in the home straight to record the filly’s first win in a time of 1m 59.8s.
“It worked out really good, she travelled well all the way, down the back and around the turn I thought she was in with a strong show as long as we got to the sprint lane,” Woods said.
“She has always had a bit of ability but has always done a few little things wrong and she is still learning to race,” he added.
The filly was a $4,500 purchase from last years Carrick Park Yearling Sale, and being Tasbred, connections were able to take home there $10,000 first win Tasbred bonus.
Stepping Stones wasn’t the only pacer to break their maiden on the card with the Ivan Belbin trained Telmax Nikita scoring in the opening race.
Watch Stepping Stones beat her older rivals in the Rexel North Hobart Pace: