It was a night for the three-year-old pacers in Hobart on Sunday evening with Donny In Paris, The Shallows and Betterbsweet all recording handy victories across the nine-race card.
Oatlands duo Steve Lukac and Matthew Cooper teamed up to win with Donny In Paris in the Hobart Signwriters Pace.
Cooper drove a confident race from the 900-metre mark where he led up the three-wide line and proved to tough for Jocund in the home straight to win by 5.2-meters in a time of 1m 58.3s for the mile trip.
Donny In Paris put up a brilliant performance when second to Betterbsweet last week, but the trainer did have one reservation going into the race.
“My biggest worry going into the race was if he was going to back up after last weeks run which was a huge run, and with all due respect to the other runners, I thought the race was a drop-in class,” trainer Steve Lukac said.
The gelding is sired by Rug Rat Donny, the winner of 15-races in Tasmania and was well handled by Matthew Cooper.
“We will let the dust settle, he goes up four rating points after the win so we will have a look at what's coming up, his owner (Donald Hasell) lives down the Huon and they say they have a heap of good grass down there,” the winning trainer said when asked about the future plans of the pacer.
Lukac only received the pacer after Paul Williams scaled back his team after a health issue, and Lukac was full of praise for the way the horse arrived in his care.
“He arrived in really good order, we all know Paul Williams turns his horses out in magnificent order.”
The Heath Woods trained and driven The Shallows was another handy winner earlier on in the card in the Tasmanian Veterinary Services Pace.
Woods had a ten-year break from the industry and recently returned to the sport when his son Aaron indicated he wouldn’t mind getting a horse, with The Shallows being the result.
“We bought him off a classified advertisement, the owner sent us a photo of him standing in a paddock with a few sheep and he looked a reasonable type, he is nicely bred on his dams side so we thought we would take a punt,” trainer-driver Heath Woods said post-race.
It was the second career win at his twelfth race track appearance for the gelded son of Shadyshark Hanover, he enjoyed a lovely one-out one-back trail before asking for the supreme effort at the top of the home straight where he ran away for a 16-metre win in a mile rate of 2m 0.0s.
“It has just taken him a little while to learn how to race, he has shown bits and pieces of ability but hadn’t put it together in the one hit, I think this time in he feels more like he has learned the racing caper,” Woods explained
Heath has two horses in his care with an unnamed two-year-old that he and his son Aaron purchased at the Carrick Yearling Sale earlier this year.
Betterbsweet (photo) was another three-year-old to win on the card when she led all the way to win the Triple M Hobart Pace to record back-to-back victories.
Gareth Rattray was able to lead from the pole draw and dictated affairs to defeat Boss Major and Heza Rummage.
Ben and Mark Yole once again had a night out when they teamed up for a double with The Lemondrop Kid and Popnduke.
Ricky Duggan also drove a double in the sulky with Peaceful Thomas winning first-up from a short spell while Inner Light returned to the winners stall after a narrow defeat last time out.
The Paul Hill trained Whos Watching Now was an impressive winner of the two-year-old event courtesy of a copybook drive from Rohan Hillier.
Sunday night’s Hobart card was the second last race meeting in the state for steward Roger Brown who will take up a role with Harness Racing Victoria later this month.
Duncan Dornauf
for Tasracing