23 October 2017
With the Australian Drivers Championship in Hobart less than a week away it was a time to sit up and take notice of the quality of our homegrown stars on Sunday night.
The nine-event Launceston Pacing Club meeting threw up three driving doubles.
Last season’s Leading Junior Driver Jack Laugher was first to draw blood for favourite punters, winning the early speed battle on the popular pick Stylish Trend before being able to conserve enough petrol to finish off with a last half of 58.1 seconds, staving off a determined late surge from Dellas Command, to gain the day by a half-head.
Jack was again the punter’s pal in the Luxbet Best Of The Best Stakes over 2200-metres, guiding the Ken Rattray trained Tuxedo Max ($3.40) to back-to-back victories.
The former Queensland seven-year-old, having its 105th start, was fast away from gate one and held the top comfortably through the first corner.
Gareth Rattray was quickly off the pegs with last start winner Jetcraft to sit outside the front-runner, and the battle of the master and the apprentice was on.
Tuxedo Max travelled well to the turn and kicked clear of Jetcraft before holding a late surge from outsider Modern Chic.
Hit The Lights, a five-year-old mare driven by John Walters, delivered a knock-out blow for punters scoring the third win of its career with a whirlwind finish to capture the 2017 Australian Drivers Championship C2 to C3 Heat Three at bolters odds of $36.60.
Hit The Lights (pictured), owned by Eric Blomquist and Mark Geeves, has had 37 starts in its career, 34 of those in Hobart, one at St. Marys and just two in Launceston.
Eric and Mark combined with Flashing Red to capture the $25,000 Devonport Cup in 2002, defeating Gorse Bush by a half metre.
Little did anyone know at the time but the race would go down in history, setting Flashing Red on his journey to $2million in stake money earnings, while Gorse Bush would go on to become the dam of the incomparable dual- Interdominion champion Beautide.
Walters later hitched his wagon to Tisu Toota in the last race, the Claimer, for an all the way win for trainer Clayton Miller.
Tisu Toota ($5.30) showed his liking to the stand start conditions, pinging the tapes to notch up his 19th win from behind the strands from just 57 starts.
Todd Rattray’s dream of another tilt at the Interdominion with Devendra is on track after a sizzling display in the Free For All.
The Vivian Clark owned Bettors Delight – Queen Carey eight-year-old gelding scorched to the early lead and had the opposition covered turning for home, clocking a final quarter of 27.4 seconds to return a mile-rate of 1:55:3 over the 1680-metre trip.
Todd completed his double when four-year-old Zhukov Leis ($1.60), owned by Marjorie and Trevor Leis, cruised home after leading from start to finish.
Zhukov Leis had a 3.6-metre margin on the line from the fast-finishing Buster William to bring up its second victory at start five.
Adrian Collins pulled off a Gavin Lang type performance coming from back last on the Dick Eaves prepared Courageous Katee ($2.70) to zoom down the outside of the track to win in dazzling style by 2.6-metres.
Gareth Rattray showed he is primed to represent the host state in the Drivers Championship on Saturday night with an inspired drive on Ready To Fire ($3.50) coming from near last at the bell, while trainer-driver Christian Salter produced Kwiatkowski first up from a two months lay-off to power down the centre of the track for victory.
Approved By Dean Baring www.harnessbred.com
Driving The Future Of Harness Racing
