Reigning Victoria Cup champion Rock N Roll Doo showed he is on track to defend his title with a soft win in the Community Bank Maryborough Gold Cup on Sunday.
Sent out a $1.25 favorite, the Michael Stanley-trained five-year-old worked around to wrest the lead off Curly James with 2000 metres to travel and the result was never in doubt thereafter.
Rock N Roll Doo reeled off a slick 54.7sec last 800m to defeat Curly James and Narutac Prince in a mile rate of 1:57 for the 2690m journey.
Stanley said he was of the opinion that his stable star needed another hit-out prior to next month’s Victoria Cup.
“I probably held him together too much around the bend because we’ve been pretty light on him since he has come back from Sydney and hence the reason we came here today as I felt he just needed an extra run for his Victoria Cup campaign,” Stanley said.
“It probably took 100 metres in the straight to realise he was racing when Curly James got up beside him, but in the last half of the stretch he switched on and really strode out and showed his power.”
Stanley also acknowledged the assistance he received from the Maryborough Club last year.
“When we had all the rain last year leading up to the Victoria Cup campaign I couldn’t get on my track, so I rang the guys here at Maryborough and they prepared the track a couple of times so I could give him a decent hit-out,” he said.
The Jess Tubbs-trained One Over All overcame a 30m back-mark to establish a track record in taking out the Total Cool Maryborough Trotters Gold Cup.
Greg Sugars made a last-to-first mid-race dash on One Over All as the leader Victree Hill set a leisurely tempo in the lead.
Sugars allowed the leader more rein around the home turn and One Over All careered away in the home straight to score comfortably by nine metres from Victree Hill and Blue Coman in a mile rate of 2:01.1.
Sugars said the son of Angus Hall is bred to be a top-line trotter.
“He's getting better with age, he’s had a fair bit to live up to being terrifically bred out of a wonderful family, and there’s countless winners and high-quality horses that have come out of his bloodlines,” Sugars said.
“He was off to a bit of a rocky start with us. He’s caused us a lot of headaches along the way, but as he’s maturing, he’s starting to iron out a lot of those problems. So, if everything stays right with him, there should be plenty of more wins in store.”
One Over All has now won four legs of the rich Maori's Idol Trotting Championship and sits well clear at the top of the standings.