It will be good to see the fast class pacers do battle over the 1680m in Launceston on the 10-race card on Sunday evening, for the first time since late May.
It will be interesting to see how the track plays after approximately 42mm of rain fell on Saturday, with the forecast of a mostly cloudy day.
Sunday’s rating 75 to 105 event includes pacers rated 106 and better who haven’t won in their last 10 outings.
Lip Reader opened favourite for the $9,900 event on Saturday night. The Rohan Hillier prepared pacer returned to the track for the first time since running midfield behind Scooterwillrev in the Easter Cup in early April.
The gelded son of Sportswriter has won 21 races in a 71 starts career which boasts an impressive record over the sprint trip with six wins and 12 placings from 32 efforts.
The six-year-old gelding was driven for the bulk of last preparation by Conor Crook, who takes the reins on Sunday, and he was in the sulky for a recent Carrick Park trial victory.
Lip Reader settled last of the four-horse field in that trial, where he started off a 20m handicap.
He followed stablemate Ryley Major from the 600m point before peeling three-wide at the top of the straight to go home best and score by one metre in a mile rate of 2m 4.7s for the 2150m journey.
The task on Sunday has been made tough from a second-row draw, as does one of his rivals in the Todd Rattray-trained and driven Izaha (pictured).
The six-year-old entires last win was in an open class mile event in late February and should strip fitter for three runs this preparation, including a strong second in Devonport two starts ago.
Arden Roanoke will be stepping out for the first time since joining the Ben Yole stable and was well supported when markets were released on Saturday evening ($3.90 into $3.00).
A winner in six of his 22 starts has drawn barrier two and has a best winning mile rate of 1m 55.1s, which was recorded at his most recent win, which was at Terang in south-western Victoria last November, and has been doing his recent racing at metropolitan level in Victoria.
The first of 10 races is set down for 17:25, and will be shown on Sky Racing 2, with the remainder of the card on Sky Racing 1, all races will be shown on TasracingTV.