Ken Casellas | Photo: PACEPIX
Chekker’s surprise victory in the $30,000 Fly Like An Eagle Pace for Westsired three-year-old fillies over 2130m at Gloucester Park revived happy memories for Pinjarra trainer Kyle Anderson.
Anderson trains Chekker, who caused a major upset when he was a $32.10 tote outsider (and a $41 chance on the fixed market) who finished solidly to beat the $1.06 favourite Iseeubaby after that filly had proved a handful for her driver Emily Suvaljko.
Chekker, a filly by Caribbean Blaster, is the first foal out of the Mach Three mare Our Clarisa, who raced 130 times for six wins, 31 placings and $59,313 in prizemoney.
Our Clarisa holds a special place in Anderson’s heart. “She was my first starter as a trainer when she won at Busselton on January 2, 2016 (when she was a $24.40 chance driven by Dean Miller and finished solidly to beat the pacemaker Augusta Moonlight),” said Anderson.
After that Anderson had his first drive in a race when he drove Our Clarisa into third place behind King Lebron at Bunbury on April 23, 2016.
Our Clarisa won at three of her 21 New Zealand starts and had seven trainers in WA, winning three more times, at Wagin, Busselton and Kalgoorlie.
“Our Clarisa was bred and is owned by Jim Morgan, who is my Dad’s stepdad, and he has been a part-owner of almost every horse I’ve had, including Al Guerrero (70 starts for 15 wins, 18 placings and $175,368),” said 37-year-old Anderson.
Chekker was driven on Friday night by Kyle Harper, who drove the filly to an all-the-way nine-length victory as the $1.75 favourite at Bridgetown five starts earlier on April 6.
Iseeubaby gave Suvaljko an extremely torrid time after leading from the No. 1 barrier and refusing to settle. She contacted her sulky wheels and raced erratically, charging to lead by several lengths and then threatening to pull up before again dashing away to open up a big lead. She led until the final 50m before Harper got Chekker to the front to beat Iseeubaby by a half-length, rating 1.58.7.
After a slow lead time of 38.3sec. Iseeubaby sprinted over the opening 400m section of the final mile in a flying 27.9sec. to leave her rivals floundering in her wake.
Chekker raced in third place in the Indian file affair, with Harper explaining: “They were running too quickly so I decided to rate her own race. We made some ground up with the slower second quarter of 31.7sec. and she sustained a good run to get up and win.”