Ken Casellas | Photo: Pacepix
A favourable barrier at No. 3 proved to be the major factor in Steno causing an upset and winning from the $1.16 favourite Wonderful To Fly in the $27,000 NRL @ Bridge Bar Pace at Gloucester Park on Friday night.
Steno, the $4 second fancy, revealed her usual sparkling gate speed and she virtually assured herself as the winner by dawdling through the lead time in 39.1sec. and the opening 400m in a slow 31.8sec., while Wonderful To Fly was racing in last place in the Indian file affair of seven runners after starting from the outside barrier.
Shane Young eased Wonderful To Fly off the pegs 1100m from home, but his bid to move to the breeze was thwarted by Shane Steele, who moved Stormyskyes from three back on the pegs to race without cover. This gave Wonderful To Fly an ideal passage in the al circuit before Young switched her three wide with 400m to travel.
Jocelyn Young gave the opposition little hope by getting Steno to sprint over the final two quarters in 28.3sec. and 27.4sec. Wonderful To Fly fought on determinedly to finish second, three lengths behind Steno, who rated 1.58.3 over the 2130m trip.
“After drawing inside of Wonderful To Fly I knew Steno would be fast enough to cross the others and get to the front,” said Young. “I was happy with the slow lead and slow first quarter even though I was getting itchy fingers and wanting to get running.
“I was trying to wait until Wonderful To Fly started to go forward. When Stormyskyes got moving, she was quite strong. But we didn’t go overly stupid after such a soft lead.”
Shane Young had planned this event to be the final stepping stone for Wonderful To Fly to travel to Sydney to contest the $50,000 Singo at Menangle next Saturday week, and then, hopefully, run in the $2.1 million Eureka a fortnight later.
“We were due to leave on a flight to Melbourne on Tuesday before travelling to Sydney by float,” said Young. “But it’s now 50-50 about making the trip. It is more than likely we will pull the pin on it.
“I would have liked it if she had gone a bit better in tonight’s race. A lot of people would have expected her to do better, not necessarily to win but to get over Stormyskyes a bit better.
“However, sometimes the way a race is run it can catch you out a bit. They got away with a lot early, so it probably turned it into a 1200m or 800m race, and no matter how good you are, you can’t get over them. She went fine and pulled up well. At this stage I’ll make my decision on a trip to Sydney within the next couple of days.”