Let Me Thru holds out stablemate Happy Maori to win the Vicbred Super Series final
Chris Lang lost his obvious heir apparent to dual Inter Dominion winner Sundons Gift when Skyvalley was retired due to injury in February, but he could have already found a replacement.
Let Me Thru confirmed both his potential and Lang’s status as one of the all-time great trotting trainers when he beat stablemate Happy Maori in Friday night’s $50,000 Group 1 Vicbred Super Series 4YO Trotters Final win at Tabcorp Park.
Lang doesn’t want to put the mozz on the son of Muscles Yankee, but he conceded that last year’s Tabcorp Australasian Breeders Crown champion is showing all the signs that he might be his next top-liner.
“A horse like Sundons Gift doesn’t come along very often, but the way he (Let Me Thru) is going now is good because I believe he’ll be a better horse as a five-year-old,” the Nagambie trainer-driver said post-race.
“He had four months off after he won the three-year-old Breeders Crown and I still don’t think he’s as fit as he should be. I believe he still can improve on tonight’s performance.”
The gelding took his record to nine wins from 15 starts when he became the first trotter to add the Cammaroto Poultry Vicbred title to Breeders Crown success at three. Let Me Thru also won last year’s inaugural Group 1 Australian Pacing Gold final.
“I distinctly telling the owner, Richard Matthews, before he’d raced, ‘I think we’ll have a bit of fun with this horse but take no notice of his first four starts because he’s going to take that long to get going’,” Lang said.
“Then at just his fourth start he won his first Group 1 (APG final). He’s improved from that point and his breeding suggests he’ll continue to improve.”
Let Me Thru justified the faith of punters with his all-the-way win at $1.60 in the 2240-metre mobile.
He had to work to hold out Sassy Pinevale for the early lead and while he got away with a 32-second opening quarter he broke 30 seconds for each of the last three splits.
A 29.8sec second quarter was followed by 29.2sec and 28.6sec splits to carry Let Me Thru to a 5.4m win over his Chris Lang Jnr-driven stablemate in a two-minute mile rate.
Zanzi Bromac ($40) flashed home to cut Arizona Blue ($16) out of the minor money, while $3.30 second elect Down Under Muscles was fifth, more than 14m from the winner, after racing outside Let Me Thru from the bell.
“I was a bit worried when we had to work out of the gate and I knew when we slowed down it would make it easy for Arizona Blue and Down Under Muscles to come around, but I had to because we worked early,” Lang said.
“But in the end he was just too strong. I felt at the 400m mark that the only one that might beat me was the stablemate sitting on my back. For a filly she did a fantastic job and it was a dream result.”
Fire Keeps Star At Bay
Beaten but far from disgraced. That was the consensus after Bonavista Bay went down in the latter of Friday night’s four-year-old entires and geldings Vicbred Super Series semi finals.
Punters aren’t usually forgiving when a $1.60 favourite bites the dust, but they cut the Mike Reed-trained star some slack following a nightmare week after his brave second to Tintin In America in New Zealand the previous Friday.
If backing up wasn’t challenge enough, his trip home was delayed by 24 hours then preparations were thrown into disarray when Wednesday’s heavy rain in Melbourne’s north-east impacted his work.
Taking that into account, he did well to get within a neck of classy Bill Galea-trained gelding Living On Fire.
The 2240m qualifier panned out how most expected with Bonavista Bay working to the front after 500m and Living On Fire sitting outside him with the $3.60 second elect just a shade stronger over the final 200m.
Deadsetlucky ($11) was 1.6m away third after travelling on the leader’s back, while Staghorn Flat, Presidential Lane and Goodtime Jasper rounded out the top six to book their spots in next Friday night’s $100,000 Group 1 final.
Living On Fire rated 1:56.9 – a feature of which was a sizzling 55.6-second last 800m – which was 0.6secs faster than Villagem went to win the opening semi final.
The defending Vicbred champion gave his rivals a start from gate 12 and sat outside leader Our White Knight from the 1400m but still held off a late challenge from Australian Derby winner Village Of Dreams.
On the line the $2.60 favourite had a half-neck to spare over the $5.50 chance with Our White Knight ($3.60) holding on for third, 8.5m away, just in advance of fast-finishing trio Kid Coconut, Indigo Bay and Kidinacandyshop.
