By Adam Hamilton
It is not just all about Ballarat this weekend.
About 10 hour up the road at Menangle, the countdown to the Group 1 Chariots Of Fire gets serious.
It’s in the $50,000 Group 2 Hondo Grattan and most think it’s a match race between the All Stars’ Our Waikiki Beach and Shane Tritton’s much-improved Salty Robyn.
The Aussie TAB has Our Waikiki Beach a slight favourite at $1.85 from the pole with Salty Robyn at $2.20 from gate three.
Tritton can’t wait for the race and thinks Salty Robyn is good enough to not lonely beat Our Waikiki Beach, but sit outside of him and do so if that’s what it takes.
“I hope Johnny (McCarthy) gets Waikiki away quickly enough to lead. I’d like Salty to sit outside him … that’s where he races best,” Tritton said.
Sound crazy? Maybe not when you consider at his latest run Salty Robyn sat parked at Menangle and posted a scorching 1min49.2sec mile with splits of 27.1, 27.7, 27.6 and 26.8sec.
It was his eighth win on end and his 14th from just 20 starts.
But, of course, Our Waikiki Beach’s record is even better with 23 wins, a second and a third from just 25 starts.
The key though his that third came at his latest run, his first for five months, when he got a mile back and could only get within 5.4m of the winner Mind The Wire in a 1min55.3sec mile rate for 2300m.
“I can’t believe Salty Robyn isn’t favourite,” Tritton said. “If you go on latest form, no reputations, then Salty Robyn has to be the one to beat.
“I’m going into it confident because I don’t see Waikiki as my danger to win the Chariots … that’s Lazarus.”
Top young driver Chris Geary has the reins on Salty Robyn with Tritton’s wife and stable driver Lauren Panella pregnant and expecting their first child in August.
Although Tritton is very Sydney focused at present, he is planning a Melbourne raid next week for the Victoria Derby heats with Blue Moon Rising.
It will mean locking horns again with the All Stars team, who has odds-on prepost Victoria Derby favourite Vincent.
Approved By Dean Baring www.harnessbred.com
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