3 minute read
Midweek racing took place at Sandown and Canterbury on Wednesday and we’ve identified a horse to follow from each meeting.
Sandown-Hillside
Race 8- Rapid Achiever
The rides and position in run were the ultimate difference in the result here. Rapid Achiever, often ridden just off the pace, was taken back from a wide gate whilst the favourite Austrata was sent forward to find the one out, one back. Rapid Achiever was giving away a 3-4 length head start at the top of the straight, but the on-speed horses had an easy time of it and she couldn't run Austrata down, despite running every race fastest sectional from the 1600m to the finish. Getting to 2000m and beyond will certainly be on the radar for the Maher & Eustace trained mare and given her excellent performance on Wednesday, she'll be very hard to beat next time out.
Canterbury
Race 2- The Art Of Flying
This looked one of the wins of the day at Canterbury on the heavy 10 track. James Mcdonald took his time rolling forward to the lead and kept them running, getting the chasers off the bit around the turn and maintaining a 2.3 length margin on the line. The Flying Artie colt has always shown plenty of talent as a juvenile, having run 3rd, beaten 2.8 lengths by Anamoe at Sandown early on in his career. He signalled he was in for a good preparation with a strong finishing 3rd first up in the Inglis Sprint and looks ready to progress through the benchmark grades, with options in Melbourne and Sydney readily available.