Ken Casellas | Photo: PACEPIX
Two-year-old colt Crunchem is born to succeed. And he delivered the goods in fine style when he won at his second start in a race, finishing strongly to win the $21,000 Moonstream Information Services Pace over 2130m at Gloucester Park on Friday night.
His victory gave 33-year-old Aiden De Campo his 500TH success as a trainer and showed that the Captain Crunch colt should be prominent in the upcoming rich feature events for two-year-olds.
Crunchem was the fourth favourite at $7.30, and Mitch Miller was quite content to take the perfect sit behind $8 chance Butter Me Up, who began speedily from the No. 5 barrier.
Chugach, the $3.70 favourite, was forced to work in the breeze before Deni Roberts sent him to the front with 300m to travel. That was when Miller got Crunchem into the clear and the colt finished strongly to get to the front 75m from the post and go on and beat Chugach by a length, rating 1.59.2 after final quarters of 28.5sec. and 29.4sec.
“Aiden has a high opinion of Crunchem, but he has had drama after drama getting him to the races,” said Miller. “He had a nice run tonight, and there’s plenty of improvement in him.”
Crunchem is the second foal out of former star mare Tricky Styx, who raced 79 times for 22 wins, 16 placings and $460,548 in stakes. Her wins included the Group 1 Diamond Classic and the Group 2 Champagne Classic as a two-year-old.
After that she finished second to Beaudiene Boaz in the 2016 WA Derby and third to Major Reality in the WA Oaks, and she went on to win the Group 3 Narrogin Cup and the Group 2 Pinjarra Cup in 2016, followed by her victory in the Group 3 Winter Cup in 2017.
Tricky Styx’s first foal Zephyra has had 33 starts for ten wins, eight placings and $320,557 from 33 starts. Her victories have included the Group 1 Diamond Classic and the Group 1 Westbred Classic as a two-year-old in 2022 and the Group 2 Four-Year-Old Westbred Mares Classic in 2024.