October 13, 2016
Pat Duff, the conditioner who picked up last year’s Roy and Glenis Radunz Wondai Cup with Fasta Than Light, aims to make it two in row on Saturday.
The veteran Deagon based trainer, who kicked off his career at Wondai, has the top weight Unbowed in the $10,000 BM 65 event over a testing 1465 metre journey.
Hannah English will partner the seven-year-old gelding whose parents Refuse to Bend and Deadly Nightshade were both born in Ireland.
Unbowed has been successful at provincial level and will appreciate the step down from the class of some recent Eagle Farm outings.
Although yet to start on the sand, the bay has a good record on heavy and soft surfaces and five of his six wins to date have been over the metric seven furlongs trip.
Among Duff’s long list of victories in feature contests are two Prime Minister’s Cups.
He took out the staying version of the Gold Coast race in 1980 with Our Cavalier, and followed up with the sprint edition in 2006 courtesy of the Dodge gelding Hard To Catch.
The latter was a logical and inexpensive acquisition for Duff.
For $20,000 he got his hands on the the grandson of Ashton Beauty, the full sister to Duff’s grand grey Handsome Prince.
Hard To Catch’s 77 tasks, with a 13-7-9 podium occupancy, returned a tidy $1,177,600.
Among Duff’s huge trophy collection are Bay Legend’s Queensland Cup and the Toowoomba Cups taken out by Hard Case and Akbar Tabita.
Fasta Than Light clearly enjoys presentation ceremonies: his haul also includes a Bundaberg Cup and a Gympie Muster Cup.
Duff is in the running to earn the Gympie Turf Club’s $5,000 Three Cups Trainer’s Bonus that will be finalised with the outcome of the $20,000 River Junction Gympie Cup at the Southside course on October 22.
The Cup is brimful of interest.
Burnett based contenders include the Nanango duo Lucks In and Decillion, the Bundaberg pair and last year’s minor placegetter Famechon Baroness.
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Other Wondai Races To Watch
The opener, the G. Crumpton & Sons Maiden Plate (850m), is an absolute lottery, with six of the hopefuls yet to be placed.
Two candidates are former Victorians making their Queensland debut – the unraced Freestone and Penny A Pinch (with a 2: 0-1-0 form line) are acceptors from Sheree Mcewan’s Goondiwindi yard.
Miss Alexandra is resuming in the MHS Class Reunion (Class B, 850m) for Blackbutt’s Wayne Farrington.
The Shovhog mare proved her liking for the sand with successive victories at Wondai and Bundaberg in April.
The highlight of the Generation Funerals Open (1100m) will be seeing if Shoulda to Shoulda can win his ninth race on non-turf tracks.
He has scored seven times at Gympie and once at Wondai.
Lindsay Anderson has taken the blinkers off and applied winkers in his attempt to secure Glenthorn Avenue’s third success at Wondai.
The bay, by Bel Esprit, meets Shoulda to Shoulda slightly better in the weights than was the case when he was ten lengths adrift of the Chateau Istana gelding at Gympie over 1170 metres late last month.
For the Ken Dowd MP QTIS BM 55 (1100m), Glenn Richardson will leg Jason Hoopert aboard Hopetoun Street, the stable’s last start Gympie winner whose main opposition could come from King Khan, the Bundaberg sprinter with strong sand form at home and at Gladstone.
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A Caulfield Cup Comment
Punters are faced with their annual springtime Cups dilemma: some, most or all of the hitherto unsighted internationals all have claims on form and reputation.
Each year some are able to handle the long trek out, a change of seasons, a new type of track and race bustling that is tighter than they normally experience.
Although spruikers sing their praises, the market is probably a better guide to making final betting decisions.
And perhaps the best advice is to run with your own intuition.
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Vale Bill Oliver
There will be a tribute to Bill Oliver in this column next week. Condolences meanwhile are extended to his large family and countless friends.
The funeral service for the former race caller and columnist will be conducted at St Mary’s Church in Kingaroy on Friday, October 14 at 11:00am.
