Top harness racing trainer Emma Stewart has carried all before her in Victoria this year with a string of major wins.
Yet even Stewart could not have expected to come to Sydney and bag the trifecta in one of Sydney's biggest plums, the APG New South Wales Derby.
Aided by a masterly drive by Chris 'The Puppet' Alford, the Derby went to Victorian Derby runner-up Poster Boy, who raced with a one-one trail for most of the 2300m journey before Alford expertly extricated him from a pocket turning for home and made a flashing run to take the Derby by one and a half-metres from surprise packet Tam Major (Todd McCarthy) with the other stablemate, Major Times (Mark Pitt) a half neck back in third place.
Vic Derby winner Colt Thirty One was sent out a short-priced favourite for Grant Dixon after drawing gate one and the race looked his for the taking when he led easily and was able to get away with a 30.9 first quarter and a 29.6 second split in the final mile.
But he never got much peace in front and was eyeballed by Maraetai for much of the final lap.
Enter Poster Boy and Alford later admitted the last half lap hadn't quite worked out how he had planed it to.
"Thankfully he was good enough to cover them when he got clear," said the champion reinsman.
With a last half of 53 seconds (splits of 26.7 and 26.3s), Poster Boy made up for his narrow defeat in the Victorian equivalent with a one and a half metre victory in 1:56.7 mile rate.
Stewart admitted eh loves coming to Sydney and would be back whenever there were feature races on.
"We're big supporters of APG and buy a lot of our horses there so it is fitting they should sponsor a race like this."
Poster Boy
Video coming
5 | 8:20pm | APG NSW DERBY (GROUP 1) | 2400M |
$200,000 3YO Colts and Geldings. RBD. Mobile | Final Results |
Pl | Horse | Prize- money |
Row & Br |
TAB # |
Trainer | Driver (C = Concession) |
Mgn (m) |
Starting odds |
Stewards' Comments |
||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | POSTER BOY | $120,000 | Fr3 | 4 | Emma Stewart | Chris Alford | $ 3.50 | ||||
BAY COLT 3 by SOMEBEACHSOMEWHERE USA out of ASTON VILLA USA (ARTSPLACE (US)) Owner(s): Lauriston Bloodstock Pty Ltd Breeder(s): Lauriston Bloodstock Pty Ltd |
|||||||||||
2 | TAM MAJOR | $ 30,000 | Fr8 | 10 | Emma Stewart | Todd McCarthy | 1.50 | $ 149.30 | |||
3 | MAJOR TIMES | $ 20,000 | Fr2 | 2 | Emma Stewart | Mark Pitt | 2.20 | $ 12.50 | |||
4 | THE BLACK PRINCE NZ | $ 10,000 | Fr6 | 8 | Roy Roots Jnr | Chris Geary | 2.90 | $ 41.80 | |||
5 | COLT THIRTY ONE | $ 5,000 | Fr1 | 1 | Grant Dixon | Grant Dixon | 3.10 | $ 2.60 fav | |||
6 | LITTLE PEANUT | $ 3,000 | Fr10 | 12 | Jess Tubbs | Greg Sugars | 7.50 | $ 19.60 | |||
7 | CODE BAILEY NZ | $ 3,000 | Fr7 | 9 | Margaret Lee | Glen Craven | 9.70 | $ 50.40 | |||
8 | THE DEVILS OWN NZ | $ 3,000 | Fr9 | 11 | Mark Purdon | Natalie Rasmussen | 13.40 | $ 18.50 | |||
9 | MARAETAI | $ 3,000 | Fr4 | 5 | Emma Stewart | Luke McCarthy | 14.10 | $ 3.90 | |||
10 | HIGHERTHANANEAGLE | $ 3,000 | Fr5 | 6 | David Aiken | Darren Hancock | 14.30 | $ 39.20 | (L) |
Scratchings | |
---|---|
DIVINE STATE | 3 |
ALL U NEED IS FAITH NZ | 7 |
Track Rating: GOOD | Gross Time: 2:54:0 | Mile Rate: 1:56:7 | Lead Time: 60.5 |
First Quarter: 30.9 | Second Quarter: 29.6 | Third Quarter: 26.7 | Fourth Quarter: 26.3 |
Margins: 1.5m x HFNK |