Victoria’s new FastTrack 1200 series promised frenetic action and Oorah’s stunning demolition job in the opening event at Melton certainly set the tone on Wednesday night.
Matthew Craven’s three-year-old pacer scored a whopping 15.9m victory at his racetrack debut, which came courtesy of an electric opening split that left rivals gasping for air.
Craven’s gelding broke the beam for the fastest opening 400m section in a Melton 1200m dash on record, with his personal 25.50sec first stanza something to behold.
It was during this split that Oorah – driven by Craven’s 70-year-old father Peter – clocked 60.54km/h, which proved the top speed of all horses involved across the six 1200m races on the night.
The son of Art Major looked tired approaching the turn, but found another gear and darted away from his opposition with a race-fastest closing section of 28.35sec to land a dominant victory over runner-up Shady Dancer.
Oorah stopped the clock at 83.06sec, which was the third sharpest overall performance of the 1200m sprints.
Early leaders accounted for four of Wednesday’s 1200m winners, with Oorah’s stablemate Bolramski (82.79sec), Alexandra Hurley’s grey mare Spun Silver (85.49sec) and Sonya Smith’s Stir Me Up (83.64sec) all prevailing after finding the front.
The evening’s other two victors – Goodtime Stryker (86.17sec) and Rubins Plight (82.87sec) – lobbed behind the leader and then finished too strongly in the home straight to score.
TripleSdata captured all the crucial information from the night’s racing and it can be sifted through in the sectionals hub at thetrots.com.au.
More than 70 nominations have already been received for week two of FastTrack 1200, which will likely see an additional event added to the five programmed races on next Wednesday night’s card at Melton.
Final fields will be released tomorrow.
You can watch all the coverage on Sky Racing and at TrotsVision.com.au, and listen to it via RSN927 and SENTrack.
WATCH OORAH’S DEBUT WIN BELOW:
