Four-year-old mare Blame It On Me ($6.00) stamped herself as a strong contender for Sunday weeks Light Harness Cup Final after scoring in Friday night’s Prelude.
Driver Natalee Emery positioned the Doug Nettlefold mare one-out and five-back in the 14-horse field before gaining a three-wide cart up over the final circuit.
The mare swept to the lead at the top of the home straight and was too good late for Jocund ($26), and Earl Jujon ($4.40 fav) in a mile rate of 2m 1.7s, off the winner’s handicap of 20 metres in the 2579-metre event.
The win was the Big Jim mares 11th career victory.
The $12,000 Final of the L.H.T Cup will be held on 25 April.
Missin Rock was another four-year-old mare to score at the meeting in a 50 to 59 rated event restricted to fillies and mares over the mile trip.
Sent out as a $6.00 chance, the Eric Jacobson-trained mare settled one-out and two-back from her second-row draw and was too quick for her rivals late to score by a half-neck in 1m 59.2s, which was the first time the Sam Gangell driven pacer has broken the 2m 0.0s in her four wins.
Rohan Hillier was the in-form driver of the meeting with a double on the card.
He scored on the Ivan Belbin-trained Eye See Double, who led to win the opening race as the $2.15 favourite.
Hillier’s other winner came in the last race with Mascott ($6.00), who broke the state record for trotters when recording 2m 0.6s for the mile trip after leading all the way.
Rodney Ashwood prepares the trotter.
Ben Woodsford is currently on a stewards enforced break from the sulky, but he was in the winner’s list with his eight-year-old mare Metro Star ($4.80 fav), who was well driven by Dylan Ford, who showed incentive to make the most of a very slow early tempo to catch the leaders napping and find the lead at 1200-metre mark.
It wouldn’t be a Tasmanian harness meeting without the nations leading trainer Ben Yole chalking up a winner, and that came in the way of My Ultimate Major, who was the longest price winner of the six-race card at $10.
