3 minute read
Nothing was going to rain on the parade of trainer Troy Williams and his young square-gaiter Affaire De Cover at Menangle on Saturday night.
The two-year-old surged through a torrential downpour – one of the heaviest seen at Menangle in years - to win the $30,000 TAB Trot NSW final, the third of three trotters' features and the last race on a star-studded Breeders Challenge program.
Williams was soaked to the skin, as was reinsman Rob Morris, but their smiles were like a ray of sunshine after Affaire De Cover mastered the horrendous conditions to score a 1.7m win over odds-on favourite On Advice (Blake Fitzpatrick), with Daimyo a distant third in a 1:59 mile rate in the night's final feature.
The three square-gaiting races were great spectacles with Affaire De Cover's effort probably the only surprise result of the three.
Darren Hancock's impressive five-year-old trotter Drop The Hammer ($1.35 favourite) won the $30,000 Four and Five-Year-Olds' final with a dashing display to account for Sobomba and Deneuve Star, scoring by 12metres in a 1:56.3 mile rate.
Hancock turned the race into a real staying test, using Drop The Hammer's great turn of foot to have his rivals chasing hard most of the way . . . and struggling to stay in touch with him.
The three-year-old TAB Trot NSW Final saw the consistent Sunny Gee (Cameron Hart) quickly find the front from gate seven and the Russell Commens'-trained son of Majestic Son trotted perfectly all the way to beat Royalebomba and Strong Desire by 3.8m in a 1:57.6 mile rate.
Then the rains really came and it was a tribute to the young trotters who handled the conditions with consummate ease with Affaire De Cover taking a trail behind On Advice mid-race before rounding him up in the straight the final time for a win that was impressive as any on a night which saw four $125,000 Group 1s for the two and three-year-old pacers, dominated by a Luke McCarthy hat-trick with Mach Dan (3-y-o colts), Bar Room Banta (2-y-o colts) and Soho Almasi (2-y-o fillies).
Queensland-based filly Pelosi won the other rich final (3-y-o fillies) on protest; Blake Hughes took out the Rising Stars race with the Roy Roots Junior-trained Marty Major and Jess Prior won her second J. C. Caffyn Plate, getting Red Reactor home by a nose in the invitation-only race for Indigenous drivers.
