By Tim O'Connor
The Cranbourne trainer-driver revealed the seven-year-old veteran of more than 100 starts is being set for this year’s Inter Dominion Championships after his impressive win in Saturday night’s TAB Golden Reign Free For All at Melton.
Ewen’s charge capitalised on the early burn from Its Back In The Day (John Nicholson/Michelle Phillips) and Malcolms Rhythm (David Aiken/Josh Aiken) and was saved for one run at his rivals in the home straight. He peeled three deep from the one-one at the final turn, hit the front at the 150m mark and then held off the fast-finishing Shortys Mate (Julie Douglas/Jack Laugher) who dived home along the sprint lane.
Following his 31st career victory at start 124, Ewen said Bulletproof Boy was likely to have one more run and then a six-week spell before starting a campaign aimed at the Inter Dominion.
“He’s just as good as most of them when he gets that right run,” Ewen said.
“I didn’t go to the Inters last year. I didn’t want to trip him and he’d had a pretty strong campaign already by then.
“This year, being at home as we call it now, we’ll probably campaign him for the Inters.”
Heats for this year’s Inter Dominion Championships will be held at Ballarat, Shepparton and Geelong before the grand finals at Melton on December 10.
John Justice raised eyebrows with his post-race comments about Mufasa Metro following a 25m Melton obliteration earlier this month, but his tag as a better horse than 1990s top-liner Lenin might not be off the mark if a dominant display in the DNR Logistics Vulcan Trotters Free For All is anything to go by.
In clearly his biggest test since arriving in Australia, the four-year-old Kiwi led and comfortably handled a quality field of rivals to win the Group 3 feature.
He clocked closing quarters of 29.2sec and 28.1sec for a mile rate of 1:56.0min over the 1720m sprint trip.
Brent Lilley’s star filly-turned-mare Queen Elida (Anthony Butt) jumped out of the ground to run second in what was a brilliant first-up performance, while Sundons Courage (Chris Angove/Brad Angove) took the trail behind Mufasa Metro and boxed on well for third.
Lenin, of course, was a star for the Justice stable through the early to mid-1990s, with the Group 1-winning trotter finishing his career with 41 victories from 107 starts and close to $300,000 in prizemoney.
Not all those runs were for Justice, but he certainly had his fair share of fun with the son of Noodlum before his racing days came to an end in 1996.
Mufasa Metro’s seventh career victory – and fifth here in Australia – was the second leg of winning double for the Toolern Vale horseman after Huli Nien sprinted best to narrowly take out the Mimosa Homes Claiming Pace.
The burgeoning Victorian trotting ranks look to have another top end player with One Over All continuing to sparkle from the Jess Tubbs and Greg Sugars stable.
The New Zealand import produced a dominant front-running success in last week’s Mildura Trotters Cup and was in similar form with an all-the-way triumph in Saturday night’s Aldebaran Park Trot at Melton.
Sugars speared to the lead from barrier six and never looked in any trouble as the four-year-old cruised down to score by 6m over All Cashed Up (Anton Golino/Jason Lee), who snagged a spot behind the leader and trailed him throughout the journey.
“With more racing under his belt and if he learns to be quite adaptable and gets his head screwed on right, the way that he can run time quite comfortably, he will measure up with some pretty handy horses I think,” Sugars told TrotsVision.
Sugars said One Over All picked up a bug on his way over from New Zealand and the horse’s first Australian preparation never really got going.
He debuted on our shores with a sixth placing in the 2021 Victoria Trotters Derby and was then stood down following a poor performance at Melton in early November before being sent for a spell. He returned with a second placing at Hamilton in late March, then made a mistake at Bendigo in early April before breaking through at Maryborough a week later.
“Since he’s had a break and we’ve been able to build him up slowly, his manners are much better this time around and he’s still got all that lethal speed,” Sugars said.
“We are very happy with what he’s done his last three starts.”
The son of Angus Hall has now won eight races from 28 career outings.
