Chris Alford can start having a good look at this year’s Pryde’s EasiFeed Victoria Oaks prospects after Leer showed Group 1 intent with an eye-catching Victorian debut.
The centrepoint of a Saturday night treble by trainer Brent Lilley and reinsman Alford, Leer was joined by Robbie Royale and Kyvalley Chief in saluting for the stable as metropolitan racing came to Kilmore for a terrific night’s racing.
The American Ideal three-year-old filly, a half-sister to Wildwest, looked most crisp on the cool night with a comprehensive win in the Don Logie Memorial 3YO Pace, the third of her career after winning two of her four starts for New Zealand owner-breeders Maree and Bruce Wallace in her birthplace.
Alford told Trots Vision he rated both her and Robbie Royale his best two chances heading into the night’s racing and it proved prescient.
“She trialled here well a few weeks ago when conditions were terrible, so I only went really slow time and she dashed up in 28, felt like she could have gone 26,” he said.
“I didn’t know what the one horse (Just As Well) would do because I drove it and led when she ran second last start, but (Leer) did get out of the gate really quick.”
That would see her whip to the front in a 42.8-second lead time and then run even quarters to hold all challengers at bay, gaining separation with a 28.9-second third quarter and ultimately winning by 14 metres.
And Alford hinted there was still significant improvement to come.
“She started kicking the wheels and that’s why she wanted to roll along a bit. She hit them virtually all the way and never settled that well,” he said.
Pressed on her future plans, he said “it’s hard to say, but I think she will measure up to the good Oaks fillies”, which would be no small feat given the likes of Ladies In Red and Tough Tilly headline an outstanding class.
It was a good night for three-year-olds, with Soho Bollinger winning the card’s richest race, the $30,000 Jet Roofing Winter Championship Final, a Group 3 for trainer Mick Stanley, owner-breeder Robert Watson and reinsman Zac Phillips.
Up against open age runners in the 70-79 rating band, Soho Bollinger ripped to the front from the widest gate and then rocked the field to sleep in a 62.4-second first half before stretching out in a brisk last 800 metres.
“(Mick) was really confident that I would get across them no problem,” Phillips told Trots Vision. “He said he’s in a really good place at the moment, and if I get an easy first lap to get them rolling because he will wait for them, which he did.”
There was also plenty of delight on the night for Jack Laugher, who stretched his lead on the Concession Drivers’ Premiership with a treble of his own.
Laugher steered Im No Outlaw to a front-running victory in the first – the Bob Cain Memorial VHRMA Pace – for Julie Douglas, then teamed with Carla Inness-Goodringe to win a heat of the Roger Reeves Memorial Winter Trotters Cup with Zarem.
The icing on the cake then came in the highly anticipated MC Security 2YO Pace, when Laugher timed his run perfectly to claw to victory by a head with Douglas-trained Ozzie Joy, beating High Profile, the half-sister of brilliant pacer Ride High who was making her race debut.
Douglas also enjoyed a treble of her own on the night, with Torrid Saint continuing his stellar form to win the Popular Alm Sprint in the hands of reinsman John Caldow.
