The Larajay Farms stable is finetuning its assault on the next fortnight’s features, including a tilt at this weekend’s Geelong Pacing Cup and the Catanach’s Jewellers 4YO and 5YO Championship that follows.
Amid another successful Saturday night at Tabcorp Park Melton, where Greg Sugars steered three victories including La Captain for the stable he shares with trainer Jess Tubbs, the reinsman outlined the path ahead for their stars.
Triple Eight will be directed towards Saturday’s $60,000 Group 2 Geelong Pacing Cup, hoping for more fortune than he found in his Pryde’s EasiFeed Victoria Cup sixth placing.
“He was pretty unlucky,” Sugars told TrotsVision. “Shuffled back in the field and ran up into the back of the placegetters and never really got a crack at them.”
The Larajay Farm team also had Better Eclipse run third in the Victoria Cup and Just Believe take out the Aldebaran Park Bill Collins Trotters Sprint.
“All three boys came through last week a million dollars,” Sugars said. “Really happy with them all.
“Better Eclipse, very happy with him, doing a fair bit of work early (in the Victoria Cup) and then still hit the line well. Not beaten overly far in terrific sectionals.
“He will move forward to the 4YO and 5YO Championship … that will be his next aim.”
The Championship is at Tabcorp Park Melton on October 29 and shares the card with the $100,000 Benstud Queen Of The Pacific, the final leg of the Elizabeth Clarke Mares Triple Crown.
Better Eclipse may not be the only horse that Tubbs and Sugars send to the Championship, with La Captain also putting his hand up via an impressive sit and sprint win in Saturday night’s Logical Staffing Solution Pace.
He ran past stablemate Cherokee Joe to score and register a seventh win from his past 10 outings, with the three misses all being second placings.
“While we always thought he had his share of ability if we could get him consistent, we probably didn’t think he would reach this level,” Sugars said.
“He’s come a long way in a relatively short period of time. It’s a little bit hard to know how far we’ll go with him. We’ll just stick to the four-year-old races over the next couple of months, and the four and five-year-old championship.”
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As for Just Believe, the 2022 Inter Dominion, which kicks off on November 26 at Ballarat, remains the focal point, with a starting place locked in courtesy of the aforementioned Group 1 win on October 8.
“Just Believe, obviously rapt with what he did last week,” Sugars said. “Haven’t pin-pointed a plan, obviously we are aiming at the Inter Dominion series with him now that he’s bumped his way up the ranks. He may go to Geelong next week, not 100 per cent on that yet.”
Saturday night’s Geelong Pacing Cup card also includes the $25,000 Haras Des Trotteurs McNamara Memorial Trotters Cup.
