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Lochinvar Art etched his name in trots immortality with a commanding victory in the $500,000 Del-Re National A G Hunter Cup, claiming the heavyweight title that’s long seemed his destiny.
The Shepparton superstar was advanced to the front early for trainer-driver David Moran and broke the field open with an extraordinary 53.2sec last 800 metres to win by 6.4 metres.
“It was huge for me,” Moran said. “It’s one of those races you watch as a kid growing up. It’s probably a race that I’ve wanted to win to be honest more than an Inter Dominion and races like that. It’s just been such a time-honoured event.
“You see some great horses and great drivers win it over the years. It’s great just to know your name’s going to be up on the honour roll with some of the greats. It’s a big achievement.”
Lochinvar Art led for the last two laps of the 2760-metre feature, flushed out early by the advancing Star Galleria.
With a tick over a lap to go his lead rival King Of Swing advanced to sit on his outside, but Moran never allowed Luke McCarthy’s reigning champion a sniff, putting his foot to the floor a long way out and winning in a 1:54.8 mile rate, just 1.2 seconds outside the track record.
“It looked like a good draw on paper but we had to get on our bike a bit earlier than we would have liked,” Moran said.
“I was pretty confident. He just felt good in the run. He did it pretty easy, I know his first half wasn’t too bad, but he did it so easy, he was gliding across the ground.”
