Ken Casellas | Photo: PACEPIX
Part-owner and trainer-reinsman Shane Young has pencilled in an ambitious program of feature races for champion mare Wonderful To Fly, who resumed after a four-week absence in superb style with an effortless victory in the $27,000 Westbred Is The Way Pace at Gloucester Park on Friday night.
“She will go to the Schrader Pace (a $50,000 Group 3 event for mares next Friday week), then the Norms Daughter Classic (a Group 2 $100,000 race on November 10) and the Mares Classic (a Group 1 $150,000 feature on November 24),” said Young.
“Depending on how she is going I will consider a start in the $200,000 Golden Nugget (December 15). She has a hard couple of months ahead of her, but she has had a lot of breaks in this campaign. She didn’t do too much tonight when she had an easy enough run. She keeps on turning up and producing.”
Wonderful To Fly, the $1.20 favourite, began smartly from the No. 5 barrier and she dashed past the polemarker Simply Shaz ($11) after 120m. The slow lead time of 39.9sec. was followed by casual opening quarters of 32sec. and 29.6sec. before the final 400m sections whizzed by in 27.8sec. and 27.4sec.
She won by 4m from Simply Shaz, who fought on determinedly, with Dontbesillychilli ($11) a further 2m farther back in third place after running on from fifth at the bell. Wonderful To Fly rated 1.58.4 over the 2130m journey, and she now has a record of 47 starts for 29 wins, eleven placings and stakes of $582,544.