Ken Casellas | Photo: Gloucester Park Harness Racing
Star filly Wonderful To Fly has recovered from a bruised foot and Pinjarra trainer-reinsman Shane Young declared “she should be the horse to beat” when assessing her prospects in the $20,250 Dulux Accredited Painters Pace at Gloucester Park on Friday night.
“It is a good field, and the draw (barrier five) has made it interesting,” said Young. “It won’t be easy; it’s another stepping stone to see how good she is and how good the others are.
“Wonderful To Fly is racing first-up for five weeks, but she seems all right. She had a bruise in a front foot, and we got the all clear last week. She is working well, but she has had only one run in about eleven weeks. She should still be the horse to beat.”
Wonderful To Fly has a vastly superior record to the records of the other nine three-year-old fillies in Friday night’s race. She has earned $322,038 from her 18 wins and six placings from 28 starts, and this week she will be attempting to extend her winning sequence to eight.
Adding considerable interest to the race will be the first appearance at Gloucester Park of the lightly-raced and inexperienced New Zealand-bred Im Themightylucy, who is favourably drawn at the No. 1 barrier in the 2130m event.
Im Themightylucy will be driven by Gary Hall Jnr for trainer Michael Young. She has not been extended in winning at her first two starts in Western Australia, at Bunbury and Pinjarra.
“She has won pretty easily both times, although it hasn’t looked like it, because she does just what she has to,” said Young. “I think she is smart enough. We brought her here for the WA Oaks, so this is a good chance to see where we’re at against a horse like Wonderful To Fly, and the others.
“Obviously, this is a big rise in class, but I think she is good enough to handle it. She has good gate speed. We’ve got the draw, so we will be taking advantage of it.”
Sovrana, a winner of six races, will be resuming after a spell for Capel trainer-reinsman Aiden De Campo. This will be her first appearance since finishing second to Wonderful To Fly in the group 2 Diamond Classic for three-year-old fillies on May 20. She will start from barrier four.
“It’s an awkward draw, but Sovrana is a quality filly, and she should run a good race,” said De Campo.
Adding depth to the race will be Free Wheeling (seven wins from 21 starts), Queeninthecorner (five wins from ten starts), Dontbesillychilli (seven wins from 25 starts) and See The World (five wins from 36 starts).
“Queeninthecorner is a nice filly, coming up,” said reinsman Shannon Suvaljko, who drove her to an impressive first-up victory, by three lengths over Tux And Tails at Northam last Saturday night. “She would have been hard to beat if she had drawn better, but it will be hard from barrier seven.”