Mixed fortunes haven’t flattened spirits in trainer David Aiken’s camp, which retains the leading hand despite a few hiccups in pursuit of Friday night’s $1.1 million Inter Dominion final.
All seemed to be rosy until defending champion Lennytheshark suffered a foot abscess, which saw him limited to a brave second in his final heat, and then all-conquering stablemate Hectorjayjay drew poorly for Friday night’s final.
Assigned gate nine, the widest on the front row, will make life tricky for driver Josh Aiken, who has produced a flawless lead-in with Hectorjayjay, finding the front and scoring comfortably in each of their three heats.
“It’s not ideal, but the way I see it the longer the race the more irrelevant the draw is,” Aiken said of the 2936m final. “Obviously you would like a better draw on the smaller track, but I thought a lot of horses needed a good draw to win, he isn’t one of those.
“We will just have to deal with the situation. He’s the quickest horse in the race. He’ll have to be good, but it’s not a complete disaster.”
Hectorjayjay’s standing was reinforced in last Friday’s final heat when he found the front from gate five and then controlled the race despite Our Jimmy Johnstone continually nagging away and pulling hard on his outside.
While his rival faded, Hectorjayjay careered away to win by 4.7m in the quickest of the night’s heats.
“It was really pleasing the fashion he did it in,” Aiken said. “He was really strong to the line and out of the three heats that felt like his best.
“He pulled up really well. He did it within himself and now has seven days to back up and get a chance to freshen up.”
As has seemed the case throughout the series, Hectorjayjay leading threat may still be stablemate Lennytheshark, who has finished fourth and second in his latter two heats but has drawn well for the final and appears to be recovering from the foot abscess.
“He’s improving really well,” Aiken said. “It released somewhat in the run, but there was still some pressure the following day. Dad’s happy with how he’s improving towards Friday.”
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