John Dunne
While the birthday boy Greg Sugars would have been chuffed to see Triple Eight sail past him on the way to victory in the Argent Free For All at Melton, the race left him in a quandary on Saturday.
Sugars was aboard the winner’s more vaunted stable mate the $1.75 favourite Better Eclipse who was beaten into fifth place after sitting parked for the last 1600 metres of the race.
“It was probably a little bit disappointing as we know what he is capable of but it was a very fast run race obviously and he was working outside the leader, but still we know at his best he should have been right there in the finish,” Sugars said.
“His own individual time wasn’t that far below what he is capable of and we’ll obviously do a bit of investigation work and make sure he is right but at this stage it’s all systems go,” he said.
Triple Eight, who was backed into a $7.50 third elect, enjoyed the run of the race on the back of Better Eclipse before James Herbertson pulled out around the home turn and the son of American Ideal produced a stout finale to score by four metres from Exotic Bushranger in a mile rate of 1:53.2.
Herbertson said he knew Triple Eight would be hard to hold out when he landed in the one out one back trail.
“When he’s close enough he is pretty dangerous and if you go back six months ago he was winning a lot of these free for alls by being close enough and he was too good for them,” Herbertson said.
It was the nine-year- old’s 26th race win and took his stake earnings to almost $850,000.
Highly talented mare Jilliby Willow completed back to back wins at Melton when she led all the way in the The Angelique.
Jason Lee pressed forward in the early stages and Jilliby Willow took up the front running with 1800 metres to travel before being joined by the $1.65 favorite Rakero Rebel shortly after.
Jilliby Willow surged clear on straightening but was challenged strongly by Sew What in the home straight before holding on to score by a half neck on the line.
Lee said he decided to gradually find the front running.
“I could have probably lit her up at the start but it might have brought us undone in the end and I was pretty confident we could work our way to the front,” Lee said.
“This one is a really lovely mare, she’s pretty high quality this one,” he said.
“She has high speed and hopefully we can even toughen her up a little more and I drove her pretty tough tonight from the 1200 and she was good.”
Hardy juvenile Hesitate returned to his best form when he took out the Logical Staffing Solutions Tatlow Stake (2YO Colts & Geldings) courtesy of a brilliant drive from Damien Burns.
Hesitate ($3.20) was buried three back along the pegs however Burns was able to extricate his charge away from the pegs around the home turn and the son of Sportswriter responded admirably to score by six metres from the fast finishing Schwarz.
“That’s awesome, he went super and was travelling the whole way and when I let him down he just took off- he has that much speed,” Burns said.
The Emma Stewart trained debutant Leavitt ($2 fav) took out the Tatlow Stakes (2YO Fillies) when she came from last at the 800 metre mark to round up her rivals and score by a metre from Lily Lotus.
