Greg Sugars enjoyed a perfect start to the 2023 Inter Dominion carnival in Queensland on Friday night and his sister-in-law was enjoying some extra opportunities at Melton in his absence on Saturday evening.
Sugars is up north with the team of Better Eclipse and Just Believe, who won respective pacing and trotting heats during the opening round of ID23 at Albion Park.
Closer to home, wife and trainer Jess Tubbs and her reinswoman sister Amy combined to claim the opening heat of the Gordon Rothacker Memorial Championship with the handy Vee Em Gee Macray.
The three-year-old filly made it back-to-back victories with an all-the-way success in the 2240m event, leading easily from gate five before racing clear in closing quarters of 28.2 and 27.7 to beat Illawong Awesome and Corravally Star.
“It’s a real treat to get to have a turn while Greg’s on holiday,” Amy, who hadn’t driven a winner since May 19, said.
“We deserve it, (Greg’s sister) Kylie and I having a little go. He gets to go up in the sunshine to the Inter Dominion and we stay home in the mud, so we get to have some drives tonight and it’s really good fun.”
Vee Em Gee Macray’s win was her seventh at start 22, with prizemoney earnings now up over $60,000.
“She’s just been in a lot of really good races. She finishes in the middle, she runs great times, then every now and again she gets an opportunity to really shine.
“She felt super happy and so I just went with it. She felt like she knew what she wanted to do and I said ‘great – I love going fast!’.”
Andy and Kate Gath combined to claim the second heat with Magnetic Terror after the five-year-old worked forward from the back row to sit parked and then crushed his opposition by nearly 8m.
The $20,000 Gordon Rothacker Memorial Championship Final will be staged at Melton on Saturday, December 9.
Later in the night, Bulletproof Boy took his earnings past $500,000 with career win 37 in the D H Steel Free For All.
Trainer-driver Scott Ewen sat patiently midfield in the running line before the brilliant eight-year-old produced his customary sprint to wear down leader Outlaw Man in the home straight.
Ewen said he had contemplated taking the son of Art Official to Queensland for the Inter Dominion carnival, but was happy to stay in Victoria and allow Bulletproof Boy to “gobble up things here” while his biggest rivals were interstate.
Tim O’Connor
