Ken Casellas | Photo: Hamilton Content Creators
New Zealand-bred five-year-old El Chema gave a sample of his class when he was last in a field of six at the 250m mark before storming home to score an effortless victory in the 1730m DTS Stay Safe PPE Products Pace at Gloucester Park on Friday night.
A stylish free-legged pacer, El Chema had won impressively in fast time at his two previous outings, but he was a $5 chance, mainly because he had drawn the outside barrier.
He had won when leading and also after racing in the breeze at his two previous starts, with driver Emily Suvaljko saying that the Justin Prentice-trained gelding was a talented sit-sprinter.
“His main asset is his speed,” said Suvaljko. “At his previous couple of starts he had drawn favourably and therefore he had to stay ahead of his main rivals. I wanted to sit him up this week.
“I was thinking three the fence was a good spot, but he pulled quite hard out of the gate, so I elected to stay in the moving line. They weren’t going super hard but I knew he had the speed to overcome them. In the Golden Nugget last December I went to the fence, and that was when he galloped. So, I was quite prepared to stay in the one-wide line tonight.”
Polemarker Jett Star, the $2.60 favourite, set the pace, with his stablemate Dont Bother Me None in the breeze. Jett Star had no answer when El Chema charged to the front in the final 60m and raced away to win by two lengths from Jett Star.
El Chema rated 1.55.1 and now boasts a fine record of 30 starts for 12 wins and 11 placings for $107,116 in prizemoney.