When you think of Paleface Adios and Don’t Retreat you recall two of the 
greats of harness racing.
It’s fitting that both of these champion pacers from the seventies share pride of place with many other top notch interstate and local horses in race chronicles from years gone by as winners of Queensland’s Redcliffe Gold Cup.
The $50,000 Redcliffe Gold Cup, to be raced at the Redcliffe Paceway on Saturday night, for the first time will be raced as a Group 2 event and has certainly come a long way in the 51 years since Fairy Armagh won the 1964 edition. It was a big year for Redcliffe that year with the Club staging Queensland’s first ever harness race for one thousand pounds.
One of the big supporters of this race and the Redcliffe Club was the late Chicka Charlwood. Two of Charlwood’s best were 1976 Gold Cup winner Neena Again and River Ike, the winner in 1979. Clarrie Sweeney won the Cup with the great Roma Hanover in 1976, Kevin Robinson with Spike in 1974 and Brian Pelling with Thunder Imp in 1973.
Down the years it’s been a provincial Cup that has been won by very good horses.
In 1982 a dead heat was recorded for the first and only time with the Cup shared by Tolvan (Stewart Dickson) and Paka Star (Kevin Thomas) and in more recent times Redcliffe specialist Shipps Fire won for Julie Weidemann in 1996. This century the race has also captured a couple of stars — Hexus and I Am Sam stand out. The Danny Gallagher-trained Hexus went back to back for Luke McCarthy in 2003 and 2004 and Natalie Rasmussen steered home the Bill Dixon trained I Am Sam in 2008.
Roll forward to 2015 and there’s a chance that the finish of the 2014 Gold Cup could be replayed. Last year Grant Dixon’s Majestic Major defeated Forever Gold and Supreme Mach. That trio will again race in the Moreton Bay Regional Council Redcliffe Gold Cup and are in great form.
Also included in this year’s field is Grant Dixon’s 2013 winner Only The Brave. The Dixon stable has five of the 13 horses in the field in the 2613 metre Discretionary Handicap with classy four-year-old Alleluia and Magical Mel, the first emergency, also drawn in the race.
Alleluia will go from the front row in the stand start feature and is sure to be prominent from start to finish. Sharing the 10 metre back mark with defending champ Majestic Major is the race’s firepower, Forever Gold, Avonnova and Caesar Folly.
The Darren Weeks trained Forever Gold is looking to take its earnings to over the $700,000 mark in this race. This month the outstanding mare took out the Group 3 Ladyship Stakes at Albion Park then beat all bar Philadelphia Man in the Group 1 Blacks A Fake on the Albion Park carnival feature night. Queensland’s current horse of the year, the free-legged Avonnova will also push his lifetime earnings over $700,000 with a victory. The Ian Gurney trained Avonnova won the Group 1 Sunshine Sprint at Albion Park before finishing third behind Philadelphia Man and Forever Gold in the Blacks A Fake.
Trainer Shannon Price and driver Brad Cowen team together with Caesars Folly. Like Majestic Major, who won last week’s Group 3 Patrons Purse at Redcliffe, Forever Gold and Avonnova, Caesars Folly is already proven on the Redcliffe track and wasn’t far away when sixth in the Group 1 Blacks A Fake at Albion Park at his last start.
Redcliffe Club president Kerry Ebert said it’s a credit to everyone involved that this race is the race it is today and that, for the last couple of years, the Cup has featured as Queensland’s main event on a Saturday night.
“It’s a great race and it deserves to be the main attraction on a Saturday night,” Ebert said. “A lot of good people have ensured it’s prominence including past president’s Austin McGuckin, who unfortunately passed away earlier this month and without the efforts of Chris Garrard and Brad Steele in the chair we may not have been able to elevate the race to the caliber of event it is now. “This is a super field that we have for the Cup this year, it’s a Group 2 race for the first time and the prizemoney is the best we have ever had, it’s hard to find a negative as we take the Club into the next fifty years of racing at Redcliffe.”
Approved By Dean Baring www.harnessbred.com
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