A frenetic start, the perfect pounce and a thrilling four-way go to the finish made for a super Renown Silverware Ararat Pacing Cup yesterday, with talented Perfect Stride upstaging a quality field.
Coming on the back of Margaret Ruth’s sweeping victory in the trotters cup, a captivated crowd was treated to a thrilling $30,000 Group 3 that quickly strayed from expectations.
Kimble started the $3.10 favourite but trainer-driver Matt Craven’s repeated attempts to find the front were foiled by Jason Lee and second-favourite Highway To Heaven.
Their 38.9-second lead time was a full four seconds quicker than last year’s Cup and it made the front-runners vulnerable, a fact not lost on Perfect Stride’s reinsman Nathan Jack.
As soon as Craven halted Kimble’s challenge Jack pounced, emerging from midfield to rattle Perfect Stride to the top and it would prove the decisive move.
“It was always in the back of my mind along the front straight here the first time, the boys were keen and going, I thought … they are going to have to look for a breather,” Jack told TrotsVision.
“I just came out and went hard because I knew they wouldn’t be able to go hard again, because they had already done too much. I found the front and then I was pretty confident from there.”
The confidence was well founded, with Perfect Stride able to control the race with 30.7sec and 31.3sec first and second quarters until pace was injected when Jodi Quinlan set Demon Delight after the front runners.
Bettor Be The Bomb and Major Roll would also advance as the first four split from the field, but Perfect Stride – for trainer Russell Jack – had enough in the tank, with a 28.4sec last quarter securing the win, 1.5 metres ahead of Bettor Be The Bomb with Demon Delight and Major Roll close behind.
The clock stopped in a track record 1:55.7 mile rate and delivered Perfect Stride his first victory since last April’s Warragul Cup.
“His trials have been fantastic, even though they’ve just been quiet trials, his work has been good,” Nathan Jack said. “Once I found the front I thought he’d be a really hard horse to get past.”
The evening’s Mountain View Stud Ararat Trotters Cup was a smaller field and less eventful affair, but the dash to the line in the long-course standing start produced a popular winner in Margaret Ruth.
Steered by trainer-driver Anne-Maree Conroy, Margaret Ruth and second-placed Robbie Royale pounced when the front runners lost their grip on the race, with breeze horse Peakz Luck breaking stride in the breeze and leader Glorious Finale following suit soon after.
The race looked in Robbie Royale’s keeping, but Margaret Ruth showed she still had a withering finish and ran over the top of her rival to score by a head in the $25,000 cup.
“Kate galloped and so then I was following Robbie Royale and I thought second would be all right, and then Chris (Alford) started to chase him up and I started to chase mine up and she was good enough to win,” Conroy told TrotsVision.
Her eight-year-old mare enjoyed her second win in as many weeks, success that followed a winless stretch that reached back to January 2020.
“It’s been a long process,” she said. “I think a lot of people, because she wasn’t going any good in the top class, had thought that she’d had it, but she had to find her fitness against the top level. There were no easy races for her to come back into to.
“She might have run 10 or 11 unplaced races in a row until she got into that mares’ race and won that, and this sort of race really suits her. It’s been a long process.”
