Champion reinsman Chris Lewis was born in 1955, the year that famous American rocknroll singer and songwriter Bill Haley topped the charts with Rock Around The Clock.
Bill Haley, in the form of five-year-old New Zealand-bred pacer by Rock N Roll Heaven, is sure to have punters singing his praises at Gloucester Park on Friday night when he makes his West Australian debut in the Direct Trades Supply Pace over 2130m.
Prepared at Hopeland by Lewis’s wife Debra, Bill Haley will start from barrier No. 1 and Lewis should take advantage of the draw by leading all the way with the gelding and beating his chief rival Major Pocket.
Bill Haley has been purchased by Debra and Chris Lewis’s son Mark, Luke Montgomery, Nathan Morrone, Julie Champion, Paul Webster and Victorian harness racing personality Cameron Lee. He is lightly raced, having had 32 starts in New Zealand for four wins and five placings and six starts in Queensland for four wins.
He is renowned for his blistering finishing bursts but is also a speedy beginner and highly capable frontrunner. He led from barrier three four starts ago when he won a 2040m event by ten lengths at a 1.58.5 rate at Redcliffe.
Bill Haley was most impressive in unwinding dazzling late bursts to win a $31,600 Four-Year-Old Championship over 2138m at Albion Park and a 2280m $25,500 feature event at Redcliffe at his two most recent outings in late July.
Two starts ago, he was a 14/1 chance when he raced three wide for the first 300m and then in the breeze for a while before settling in sixth position in the one-wide line. He was sixth with 350m to travel and went five wide on the home turn for reinsman Mark Purdon and flew home to get up and win by a head at a 1.54.5 rate with the final three quarters run in 28.4sec., 28.3sec. and 27.3sec.
Six days later at Redcliffe Bill Haley, a 22/1 outsider driven by Kylie Rasmussen, unleashed a devastating burst from sixth at the 400m to get up and win by a half-length from the pacemaker Our Uncle Sam.
Bill Haley is out of Presidential Ball mare Elite Belle, who raced 73 times for 11 wins, 15 placings and $102,927 in prizemoney. Elite Belle’s half-sister Five Card Draw has had 163 starts for 31 wins, 49 placings and stakes of $647,224. Her 17 wins in Queensland before going to America in 2016 included the Group 3 Four-Year-Old Championship at Albion Park in July 2014 and the Group 3 Redcliffe Cup in July 2016.
Ken Casellas