Ken Casellas | Photo: Hamilton Content Creators
Friday night’s meeting at Gloucester Park will get under way full of intrigue, with high profile trainer Michael Young planning for a first-up victory with Blaze Away in the opening event, the $21,000 HTA Taking You To New Heights Pace for three-year-old pacers.
Blaze Away, an inexperienced novice performer with only four starts under his belt, will begin from the prized No. 1 barrier at his first appearance for eleven months when he will clash with seven more experienced and better credentialled rivals, including the only filly in the race, Water Lou.
Blaze Away will be driven by Gary Hall Jnr, who will be hoping to resume on a winning note after serving a term of suspension. It is significant that Blaze Away shone as an early two-year-old when he won on debut, beating Ten To The Dozen, Wideawake and Menemsha in a heat of the Sales Classic for colts and geldings in February last year before finishing second to Waverider in the final.
It is anticipated that Blaze Away, a winner of one race and with earnings of $25,979, will vie for favouritism with Water Lou, who has amassed $345,376 in prizemoney from 18 wins and two seconds from 23 starts.
Water Lou, to be driven by Shannon Suvaljko for trainer Mike Reed, has won at nine of her past ten starts, with the only blemish coming two starts ago when she suffered an atrial fibrillation and was retired from an event at Gloucester Park.
Young’s team of pacers is performing grandly, and his past seven starters have notched three wins, three seconds and one third placing. He is gaining a reputation as a first-up specialist, with first-up wins earlier in the season with Penny Black and Chillin, and then with six-year-old Serious Moonlite, who made his first appearance after an eight-month absence with a notable win over 2536m at Gloucester Park on Tuesday evening.
Serious Moonlite set the pace and fought off a serious challenge from Benji after a lap on his way to winning by a length from Cloud Nine.
Blaze Away, who will be having his first start for Young, showed that he would be extremely hard to beat first-up by scoring an easy victory at a 1.58.6 rate in a 2185m trial at Pinjarra three Wednesdays ago.
He led in the four-horse trial and beat outstanding filly Lion Queen after dashing over the final 400m sections in 28.2sec. and 28.1sec.
Lion Queen then gave an example of her wonderful ability at her first appearance for 18 months when she set the pace and won by just over nine lengths from Joeys On A Roll over 2130m at Gloucester Park on Tuesday night.
Lion Queen is a stablemate of Water Lou, who will start from the outside barrier in the field of eight in Friday night’s race. This will be her first appearance for 32 days as Reed prepares her for the $100,000 Westbred Classic for three-year-old fillies on September 6. The qualifying heats for the classic will be held at Pinjarra next Monday week.
“Water Lou hasn’t raced for a month, and she needed a run to get ready for the classic,” said Reed. “This was the only suitable race for her this week, even though I don’t like racing fillies against the colts. I think she can win. Put it this way, I wouldn’t swap her with any other runner in the race. They’ll know she’s there, and she will improve on whatever she does.”
Suvaljko said that this week’s race represented a good test for Water Lou. “She works with the boys on the track, and she beats them pretty easily,” he said.
Adding spice to Friday night’s race will be the appearance of quality three-year-olds Waverider, Menemsha, Artful Major and Ideal Muscle.
Waverider, trained by Ryan Bell, will be having his first start since winning the Group 3 Pearl Classic on May 24. He will be driven for the first time by Deni Roberts, who said: “It’s cool to get the opportunity on him. I’ve done a lot of my racing against him. He hasn’t got the best draw in what is a very nice field.”
Waverider, whose 11 starts have produced six wins and three seconds, will start out wide at barrier seven, with Menemsha (Aiden De Campo) at barrier six, Ideal Muscle (Trent Wheeler at five), and Artful Major (Maddison Brown at four).