Geraldine Cup bound Raukapuka Ruler had a quiet run around at the Rangiora workouts yesterday.
Settling near last of the six horse field the Cran Dalgety trained Raukapuka Ruler was under no urgency to improve his position midrace, instead just cruising around at the back of the field while stable-mate Art Union set a fast tempo up front.
Raukapuka Ruler sped up over his last 800m in around 57.5 seconds running home under his own steam with out being pushed by driver Dexter Dunn.
The workout was won by the Tim Butt trained Lanikai who rated a very fast 1-56.8 mile rate over the mobile 2000m. Lanikai blasted over his last 800m in 55.8 seconds and won going away by more than 5lengths from stable-mate Lady Chatto.
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The annual trans-tasman invited drivers series at Ascot Park will be an invited kiwis only affair, after timing and date issues ruled out any Australian participation this year.
Instead the series will be a North of the Waitaki vs South of the Waitaki drivers challenge with the series being sponsored by Sweet Lou.
The invited drivers will compete in five heats on the day with points allocated to the first five home on each occasion with 10 points for a win, 7 for second, 5 for third, 3 for fourth and 1 for fifth. Each driver receives the points they accumulate towards finding an individual champion while their points also go into their teams score to find the champion team.
Spearheading the North of the Waitaki team are the current New Zealand top two drivers based on number of wins in Blair Orange and Dexter Dunn. They will be joined by Tim Williams, Samantha Ottley, Ricky May and Gavin Smith.
The south of the Waitaki line-up is led by the three Williamson brothers – Nathan, Matthew and Brad. Rory McIlwrick, Brent Barclay and Sheree Tomlinson make up the rest of a strong local team.
Competition gets under way in Race 3 timed to start at 5:03pm on Friday 24th November.
Harnesslink Media