20 August 2019 | Duncan Dornauf
Sassafras trainer Shelley Barnes took two horses to Hobart on Sunday night, and she went home with a training double.
Her first winner of the night was Shadow Play gelding Yatsenyuk Leis who was first up since running third to Izaha in the Group 2 Raider Stakes in Devonport.
Racing three-wide and two-back for the final 1300 metres of the race, Yatsenyuk Leis proved too strong for Artiflash to score by a neck in the 2090-metre event.
“I was expecting him to go good as his work during the week was brilliant, the draw was a bit of a concern but it all worked out ok,” said his trainer Shelley Barnes.
Despite being driven for his toughness Barnes wasn’t too worried in the run.
“I wasn’t too worried as he is pretty tough, he is not a horse that can sit there and pull out the last hundred metres and sprint past them,” said the winning trainer.
“He is a lot better horse than it looks watching on the sidelines cause he is just really lazy, when Rohan (Hadley) comes back in after driving him he is more buggered than the horse,” Barnes added.
The next winner for the Shelley Barnes stable was with five-year-old Bettors Delight mare Volkova Leis who recorded her second win of the season.
After attempting to make a run around the field at the mile mark, Volkova Leis was unsuccessful in looking for the spot outside the leader and was forced to race three-wide.
“I was really pleased with her, I didn’t expect her to win after the run she had,” said Barnes.
“I don’t want to be too disrespectful for the other runners but it was a drop-in class to what she had been racing against,” explained the winning trainer.
Both pacers were driven by Rohan Hadley and are owned and bred by Trevor and Marjorie Leis.
Ben Yole was once again the standout trainer with a training quartet, taking him past 180 Australian wins for the season.
His winners included Heza Rummage, Somedan, Hear The Call and Stuey D.
Samantha Gangell drove Hear To Call to victory to put her one win behind Conor Crook with two meetings of the season remaining.
Mark Yole partnered Stuey D to a long-shot win in the trot which completed a double for Mark who won the opening race with Karalta Courage.
Many people expected Juanita McKenzie to take out the Cascade Draught Pace with the race favourite Inner Light, but it was her $9.00 chance Remember Joe scoring a 5.2-metre win.
Former New Zealand pacer Prosecution Witness was able to win at his Australian debut for trainer-driver Rohan Hillier.
The gelded son of Well Said scored by 11.9-meres in a mile rate of 1m 59.6s.
Approved By Dean Baring www.harnessbred.com
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