Ken Casellas | Photo: PACEPIX
Evergreen veteran pacer Hampton Banner maintained his outstanding form with an effortless victory in the $50,000 Village Kid Free-For-All over 1730m at Gloucester Park on Friday night to record his fourth win from his past five starts.
Now the eight-year-old faces a stern test when he lines up in the $50,000 Lord Mayor’s Cup next Friday night. He has contested 14 Cup events in WA for just one placing, his neck second to Glenledi Chief in the 2023 Lord Mayor’s Cup.
A year earlier, Hampton Banner started from the back line and ran on solidly to finish fourth behind Minstrel in the Lord Mayor’s Cup. He made amends for his second to Magnificent Storm in the Village Kid Sprint in December 2022 by proving too speedy for his eleven rivals in Friday night’s feature sprint event.
Hampton Banner, trained by Debra Lewis and driven by Jocelyn Young, was the $2.50 favourite from the No. 4 barrier when he revealed his normal sparkling gate speed to dash past the polemarker Franco Ecuador and race to the front.
Young took no prisoners, and Hampton Banner relished his task of running the four quarters of the final mile in 28.1sec., 28.8sec., 28.3sec. and 28sec. to win by just under three lengths from $6.50 chance Otis, rating 1.52.2. Franco Ecuador fought on gamely to finish third.
“Once we were in front there wasn’t much pressure,” said Young. “We won the start reasonably comfortably and then bowled along solidly, and he was doing it well within himself. He kicked away around the turn, and I was surprised at how easily he won.”
Hampton Banner won at three of his ten New Zealand starts and he now has earned $390,999 from 19 wins and 20 placings from 96 starts. He is by champion sire Bettors Delight and is out of the Christian Cullen mare Surf And Sand, who managed one win from eleven starts, as a three-year-old in a 2600m stand on debut at Addington on November 6, 2009.
Hampton Banner’s full-brother Cody Banner has raced 131 times for ten wins, 28 placings and $170,212, and his full-sister Scarlett Banner was retired in 2019 with earnings of $82,470 from six wins and 12 placings from 49 starts.