25 January 2019 | Duncan Dornauf
The $30,000 Group 3 Hardings Hotmix Devonport Cup is the feature race this weekend on a bumper night of racing at the Devonport Showgrounds on Sunday in the twilight zone.
The Tasmanian Pacing Club will stage the Tier 2 meeting of the week on Saturday evening at TAB Park Elwick in Hobart, while King Island will stage a non-tab meeting during the afternoon.
Last week there were two meetings with the first two-year-old race of the season being staged at the TAB Racing Center Mowbray in Launceston taken out by Rockandahardplace (pictured) as well as three heats of the Harry Holgate Memorial.
The other meeting was staged on King Island where Suzy Zebra and Captain Mordecai won the two races, The KIRC will stage there a final meeting of the season on Saturday afternoon.
The Stars
Rohan Hadley – was clearly the star of the show with a driving treble, with the Bridport based horseman training two of his three winners with Believe In Forever completing a winning hattrick and Secluded Beach who bounced back into the winner’s list after his last start second. Hadley also won a heat of the Harry Holgate Memorial with Volkova Leis at odds of $21. This season the Hadley stable has had 16-starts for 9 wins, six-second placings and one-third placing. That’s a 100% strike rate for his stable running in the top three placings.
Rockandahardplace – Kent Rattray and John Walters made it back-to-back wins in the $15,000 Keith Stanley Memorial Debutante Stakes with Rockandahardplace, a gelded son of Pet Rock, who proved too strong for his three opponents.
Charlie Castles – was back in the winners circle with Spot Eight, after initially leading, Castles elected to hand up the lead near the Mile mark when the speed was on, he then elected to race in the spot outside the leader from with 1250-metres to travel and was able to control the speed of the race from that point.
Art Frenzy – notched up his third win of his eight-start career when he led all the way to win the second heat of the Harry Holgate Memorial.
Molly Malones – Rowella trainer Paul Carlson was rewarded for his efforts with Safari mare, Molly Malones who won her first race at start 21, courtesy of a copybook drive by Gareth Rattray.
Volkova Leis – sat three wide without cover to win her heat of the Harry Holgate Memorial, the Shelley Barnes trained mare had not won since late February.
Multiple Winners
Launceston – Friday afternoon
Rohan Hadley training and driving double: Believe In Forever and Secluded Beach. He made it a driving treble with Volkova Leis.
Calculated Sectional Standouts
Quickest last halves (800m) from last week’s action.
Launceston – Friday
Give Me The Night 57.96s, Monarkmac 58.04, Stylish Trend 58.04, Lead Singer 58.05 and Art Frenzy 58.10s.
View all available Tasmanian Sectional Data by clicking here.
Tasracing Official Price
Launceston – Friday afternoon
Hit’s: Harshali $12 into $10, Spot Eight $3.00 into $2.80, Secluded Beach $2.45 into $2.25 and Art Frenzy $2.20 into $1.90.
Defied The Drift: Believe In Forever $2.40 out to $2.70, Chilla Breeze $3.00 out to $3.40, Volkova Leis $16 out to $21, Molly Malones $6.00 out to $7.50 and Rockandahardplace $1.60 out to $1.75.
Missed: Mister Last $7.50 into $4.80, Levi Jimmy $21 into $14 and Beachboy Butch $6.00 into $4.80.
Trial File
Hobart – Monday evening
The Rodger Whitmore trained mare Resurgent Dream, is nearing a race track return and the daughter of American Ideal was back in the winners list at the trials when she won in a mile rate of 2m 2.5s, the quickest of the Hobart session.
It was the third trial back this preparation for Resurgent Dream who won the C0 and better standing start trial off a 20-metre handicap, by a head, over Fin Mac Kee.
Leader to winner the last two splits were recorded in 29.1s and 30.4s.
The remaining four trials were won by; The Shallows (2m 5.0s), Spoilt Sport (2m 4.1s), Ductape (2m 6.3s) and Ideal Bliss (2m 2.7s).
Carrick Park – Monday evening
The Michael Laugher trained, Gareth Rattray driven Karalta Felesha recorded a mile rate of 2m 5.1s when she took out a two-year-old and older trial over 1670-metres.
It was the second trial back this preparation for the daughter of Mach Three, who hasn’t been seen at the races since finishing down the track in the $15,000 Golden Slipper in Launceston in late July.
The final two quarters of the trial were run in 30.6s and 29.2s.
Karalta Felesha has drawn barrier two in race six in Devonport on Sunday.
Other winners at the session included; Tilly Max (2m 12.0s), Yellow Taxi (2m 8.1s), No Apachemee (2m 5.9s and Got The Goods (2m 8.7s).
Week Ahead
The Group 3 Hardings Hotmix Devonport Cup is the feature race in Tasmania this weekend when the Devonport Harness Racing Club stages one of their premier race meetings on Sunday.
Four locally trained horses will contest the race including this year’s St Marys and Scottsdale Cup winner, Black Centurian who will also be joined by his Steven Davis trained stable mate Ima Ginger Rogers, a winner of two of her last five starts.
Other coastal trained horses include the Shelley Barnes trained Chief Destroyer and the Melissa Maine trained Another Swinger.
Barnes and Maine are two of four female trainers with runners engaged in the race with Juanita McKenzie having two runners in the race with Inner Light and Isaac, while Bianca Heenan prepares Star Chamber.
Star Chamber won the Cup in 2015 he won by 10-metres off a 30-metre handicap and shares the 20-metre back mark with last year’s winner, Riverboat Jasper.
Beauty Point driver has won many feature races in the state, but he will be hoping to add his first Devonport Cup to his resume when he drives last start winner Illegal Immigrant for his brother Troy.
The Cup is race seven on the card and is due to start at 7:50 pm.
There is plenty of other quality racing on the Devonport card including the Jeremy Rockliff MP Costal Pacing Thousand, Kevin Redpath North West Plate Final, Derrico Cycles Mares Incentive and the 7AD Pace for the three-year-olds.
The Devonport card will have a hosted Live Stream coverage on tasracing.com.au and will be televised on Sky Racing 1.
*Punters and participants are advised that races five and ten in Devonport have been redrawn since the original fields were released on Tuesday.
Prior to Devonport, we have two Tasmanian meetings in the state on Saturday.
The Tasmanian Trotting Club will stage a six-race card on Saturday evening where Donny In Paris resumes for the first time as a three-year-old in the final race of the night.
The gelded son of Tasmanian bred sire Rug Rat Donny won on debut when racing extremely greenly before finishing fourth at his next start.
He has been down the track in two recent Hobart trials.
It is also good to see Heath Woods return back to the industry, he is represented by debutante The Shallows who won a trial on Monday night. Woods is also in the process of gaining his race day drivers license.
The Hobart card is set down to jump at 18:53 and will be shown on Tasracing’s Live Stream Coverage and at this stage on Sky Racing 2.
The third Tasmanian meeting of the weekend is the final meeting of the season at King Island.
Both races are R0 and better Discretionary handicaps over 2079-metes.
The first pacing race features three last start winners doing battle in Iden Baroness, Captain Mordecai and Suzy Zebra.
The replays of the King Island meeting will be available for viewing on the Tasracing website after the meeting has concluded.
Interstate it is night one of the Summer Of Glory carnival at Melton and East-Devonport owner Mick Maxfield is represented in the $200,000 Victoria Derby with Max Delight.
The David Aiken trained and driven pacer led all the way to win his heat at Ballarat last week.
The draw hasn’t been too kind to the Bettors Delight colt who has drawn barrier seven in the 2240-metre race.
In New South Wales this week we seen Ignatius step out at the Menangle trials, he finished second and was defeated by 8.8-metres by Cash N Flow in 1m 52.8s.
This week the James Rattray stable has a number of runners stepping out at Menangle on Saturday and Goulburn on Monday afternoon, including Tasmanian owned and bred, Pachacuti, in the Goulburn Cup.
Approved By Dean Baring www.harnessbred.com
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