Trots Centre: Airborne Alby tipping good run will continue

Alex Ashwood drives the unique Mildura circuit as good, if not better, than anybody.

The often-aggressive tactics regularly pay dividends, with his recent strike rate in the Sunraysia quite remarkable. Of his 166 drives there in the past 12 months, he has won 50 with placings in a further 43 of those races.

And he’s tipping his good run will continue on Friday during the club’s big 11-event card.

The 27-year-old has recently purchased a property in Axedale with partner Tayla French and plans to be up and training from there by the end of the year. In the meantime, as stables are built and training tracks constructed, he’s set up at the Bendigo Harness Racing Training Centre.

Ashwood will take three horses to Mildura, with another drive for Ian Campbell part of his commitments on the night.

One of his more exciting runners is Kick It To Jack, a gelding who produced a phenomenal effort to run third after galloping at the home turn on July 30 before breaking through for victory six days later.

Ashwood said the five-year-old had been a “revelation” in recent times and expected him to continue on his winning ways in the Park Douglas Pace (2190m).

“His work has been terrific and seems a lot sharper this week than last week, which is a bit out of the ordinary for that sort of class of horse,” Ashwood said.

“He might just keep on going through the grades up there at the moment.

“He has got a lot of upside and getting better every week.

“We found with those low grades of horses through the last couple of years, that you get them fit, they might win one or two really easy and then they find their mark. But he’s just getting better by the week, so he’s probably the one that might win three or four really quick and probably get to around that 60-65 rating before you know it.”

Stablemate On My Oath was shooting for three wins in a row at Mildura on August 5, and while he ultimately finished third, did a great job to recover from severe interference in the early stages of the race to be beaten less than two metres.

He finds another “winnable race” on Friday night, with Ashwood to steer the son of Tell All in The Euston Club Pace (1790m).

The lowly-rated Lucinda Jamar scored just her second career victory at the last Mildura meeting, and looks well suited from the good barrier one draw in the Tankard Dental Pace (1790m).

“She is more than capable of going sub two minutes around the short course,” Ashwood said.

“In that sort of grade up there, you just have to go around the 2.1 or two-minute mark and you are pretty much the winner in those sorts of races.”

While all three of Ashwood’s charges are regarded as strong winning prospects, it’s Campbell’s runner that the reinsman believes is his best chance of the night.

Cemetery Bay, who has run close-up placings in both career starts to date, lines up in the Tenderprint Australia 3YO Pace (1790m) where he looks a “great value bet”.

“Kick It To Jack is probably a good thing and I think the three-year-old is probably even a better thing,” he said.