Ken Casellas | Photo: Hamilton Content Creators
Promising black colt Hes Never been Beta is poised to make a successful return to racing after a spell when he contests the $20,250 Aaron Bain Racing, Ownership Opportunities Available Pace at Gloucester Park on Friday night following an impressive trial at Pinjarra on Thursday of last week.
He is prepared by Gary Hall Snr, who produced him in fine fettle for the trial in which he was handled by Gary Hall Jnr. The New Zealand-bred colt set the pace in the three-horse trial, and after a moderate early pace he ran the third quarter of the final mile in 29.8sec. before sprinting over the final 400m in 27.1sec.
Hes Never Been Beta beat his talented stablemate Star Lavra, who was driven by Stuart McDonald and ran home solidly to finish a half-length behind his stablemate.
Star Lavra possesses good gate speed. He will begin from the No. 2 barrier, but it is problematic whether he will be able to win the start from the polemarker Runningonempty, who impressed at Gloucester Park on Tuesday afternoon when he began brilliantly from barrier six and set a solid pace before finishing an excellent second to Magnus Victor.
That was Runningonempty’s fifth start in his current campaign of two wins at Albany followed by three seconds. Hes Never Been Beta will be making his first appearance for four months, while Star Lavra will be resuming after an absence of eight months.
Adding further considerable interest to the race will be the Murray Lindau-trained gelding Hotly Pursued, who will be driven by Kyle Harper from the outside barrier in the field of six.
Hotly Pursued began speedily from barrier No. 3 when he set the pace and finished a splendid first-up second, a head behind the brilliant Im The Black Flash over 2130m last Friday night. He certainly cannot be left out of calculations.