by Ken Casellas
Sheer Rocknroll, a wonderfully consistent four-year-old, should boost her earnings past the $200,000 mark by winning the $25,000 International Animal Health Products Westbred final for four and five-year-old mares at Gloucester Park on Thursday night.
She warmed up for this assignment in eye-catching style last Friday night when she began from the back line and raced in fourth place on the pegs for most of the way before sprinting home strongly to finish second to talented six-year-old gelding Eyre Crusher. The final sections were run in 27.9sec. and 28.2sec. and Sheer Rocknroll finished ahead of several smart performers, including Foxy Dame and Bungalow Bill.
Sheer Rocknroll, trained by Ross Olivieri and driven by Chris Lewis, is handily drawn at barrier four on the front line and she should carry too many guns for the opposition, none of whom has anywhere near the record of Sheer Rocknroll, who has amassed $194,902 from 18 wins and ten placings from 44 starts.
Sheer Rocknroll is the first foal out of former star mare Sheer Royalty, who raced only 33 times for nine wins, seven placings and $248,904 in prizemoney. Her victories included three feature events for three-year-old fillies in 2009 — the group 1 double of the WA Oaks and State Sires Series and the group 3 Daintys Daughter Classic.
The three mares drawn inside of Sheer Rocknroll have place prospects as does last-start winner Falling Starzzz (barrier two on the back line) and Lovers Prayer (barrier No. 5), a winner three starts ago.
Drawn on the inside of Sheer Rocknroll are Nowuseemegirl (Aiden de Campo), Sea Cider (Michael Grantham) and Kathleen Betty (Shannon Suvaljko).
Nowuseemegirl has been driven to victory at all her seven wins by de Campo, but she has been unplaced at her past seven starts since winning at Bunbury last September. She led and faded to fifth behind Lovers Prayer at Gloucester Park at her most recent outing. She is capable of improvement.
Sea Cider showed a welcome return to form and ended a losing sequence of 16 when she led and won from Bettor Bling over 1780m at Northam on Thursday March 30.
Kathleen Betty rises in class after a last-start fifth behind Alfs Odyssey at Bunbury last Saturday night. She won three in a row (one at Bunbury and two in Albany) in February and March.
Approved By Dean Baring www.harnessbred.com
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