By Michael Guerin
Bettors Anvil may have beaten the best pacers racing in the country on Friday night but co-trainer Steve Telfer knows he still has a way to go to be the best. But at least he is getting closer. The four-year-old stunned punters with a 30-1 win grabbing his career-long nemesis Marketplace in the $60,000 Lamb And Hayward Canterbury Classic, with Mo’unga, The Lazarus Effect, It’s Tough and Republican Party all close up in a proper horse race. It’s Tough and Republican Party got rolling early and set up the sub 3:12 time for the 2600m standing start and hot favourite Marketplace was left exposed for much of that so the leaders were there to be beaten. But make no mistake, Bettors Anvil still had to come from three back on the outer to run past many of our best pacers and he did it in style, booking his confirmed ticket to the Go Media New Zealand Trotting Cup on November 10.
Telfer, who trains the son of Bettors Delight with sister Amanda, was delighted but realistic. “That is a big win and it is good to get one over a horse like Marketplace because he and Got The Chocolates have been too fast for him for most of his career,” says Telfer. “But now they are all up in open class those really good ones have to do a bit more work some times than they might have as dominant three-year-olds and that can level things up.
“So a horse like this, who usually has good manners, can get the right run and as we saw tonight get over top of them.” Not only did the win prove the icing on the cake for driver Tim Williams having a great night at the office but proved the wisdom of having Bettors Anvil up and racing early in the spring. “He has had some racing and that means we now have options,” explains Telfer. “He could go to Ashburton in 10 days, to Kaikoura a week later or just to the Cup trial so they are all things we can look at.”
Few of the beaten brigade will have concerned their trainers too much as the first really searching open class race of the Addington spring will bring a lot of them on with the hard racing they needed with the NZ Cup getting closer by the day. So trainer Regan Todd will still have been happy with Marketplace’s second and even more so with Mo’unga storming home for third.
But he had even more reason to smile 30 minutes later when Franco Lomu bolted away with the Garrards Sires’ Stakes Classic. It wasn’t looking ideal for the favourite early when the horse he was following out Cruise Maguire got crossed so Franco Lomu had all the other favourites in front of him starting the last 1000m. But Jonny Cox got him a gap at the perfect time and he went from three back the inner to three wide and flying inside the space of 300m to absolutely bolt clear. Todd had said during the week this race would tell us what Franco Lomu is made of after a hard run against Jumal last Friday. The answer: he is made of speed and plenty of courage and he has a really good race in him somewhere in the next year, especially once Jumal gets out of his way.
The open class upsets continued in then main trot when Bravehearthighlander booked his ticket in to the Renwick Farms Dominion by grabbing Higher Power in the shadows of the post. The favourite had led and over-raced and that left him exposed late but it was still a perfect drive from young Jacob Dunn to get the win with a horse who is clearly thriving in Canterbury.