9/26/10 Races -- A Story of Two Class 4s

WINNING EDGE (125 lb) replicated his run at the end of last year, but with the pace to suit and a clear run this time, was able to notch his first win.  The first sign of his ability came when he matched engines with Praising and Farm Legend in his second start.  After a poor run on a wet track, he was faced with gate 14 and an extremely slow run race.  He clocked a final sectional a very impressive 0.3s faster than anything else in the race despite being held up till the 250m mark, and only went down by half a length.  First-up this term he came very wide and looked the winner, but died on his run halfway down the straight.  But with the fitness edge yesterday, he stormed home off a hot pace to win by a neck.  He ran home 0.7s faster than Royal Panache, who admittedly did race very green and was first-up.  Nevertheless, Winning Edge looks very hard to oppose now, even in slow run races because of his brilliant turn of foot.

The two Class 4 1200m races have thrown up some very interesting results.  The first one ended in a battle royale between Darren Beadman and Brett Prebble, with the older jockey's mount CAPTAIN SWEET (125) just nosing out PONDEROSA (126).  They look to be smart horses, but RACING LEGEND (119), QUELLE SURPRISE (123), JUST FANTASTIC (121), and CHAMPAGNE DAYS (122) cannot be discounted.  This is because the second Class 4 1200m, won by ADMIRATION (130) was considerably weaker than the first.

Accounting for the fact that Admiration was held up before winning the second Class 4 sprint, the times suggest that Racing Legend, Quelle Surprise, and Just Fantastic might have all been able to run second had they been in the later race.  Racing Legend in particular closed off very well.  Champagne Days ran a huge race as well, keeping on gamely despite circling the field 4-wide.

LOMBARDI (129) ran fourth in Admiration's race, but it was a great run in defeat.  He was an incredible 4 to 5-wide the trip, but still covered the last 400m as fast as 2nd horse China Win did.  He is still very hard to beat, even over the shorter trip of 1200m.

CARISSMA (132)'s sectionals in his Class 5 race suggest that he will be very competitive even when he goes back up to Class 4.

Note: John Moore hinted that Admiration may eventually stretch out to distances as far as 2000m.