Maidstone Miss will head toward Breeders Crown glory following her Group 1 Redwood Classic win at Maryborough
A dozen years after first claiming Victoria’s most prestigious race for two-year-old trotters’, brilliant Bolinda horseman Chris Alford has secured his second Seelite Windows and Doors Redwood Classic in breathtaking, race record style.
Given responsibility for expatriate Kiwi filly Maidstone Miss by her owner and perennial associate Jayne Davies ahead of the $50,000 Group 1 at Carisbrook Raceway, Alford quietly suspected she may measure up in her first Australian test.
And after safely negotiating her first start behind the strands in the 26th renewal of Maryborough’s 2190-metre stand start feature she did all that and more; smashing the Redwood record by more than a second and announcing herself a potential star of the future.
“Jayne brought her over here a little early so that I could get to know her a bit before the (Australasian) Breeders Crown and she really struck me as a nice filly,” Alford said.
“To be honest I didn’t know what time they’d gone. I was just pleased with the way she handled everything. This is obviously a great race to win and it all bodes very well for the future.”
Sent out a $4.20 third elect, Maidstone Miss passed her first test in flying colours; stepping away well from her gate four draw and securing the coveted sit behind runaway leader Sonofpaco less than 200 metres after the start.
Superbly steered to find her feet by new mentor Alford through a lead-time and first fraction of 46.9 and 31.4 seconds respectively, the half-sister to 20-time winner Countessa Hest travelled sweetly in transit through the early part of the race.
Maintaining her role in the sweet seat through a 31.5-second following section, things only became desperate for Alford’s 2YO daughter of Sundon when race favourite Aldebaran Shades exploded forward down the back straight to pick up the leaders in the blink of an eye.
Hitting the top at the conclusion of a 29.3-second penultimate section, Aldebaran Shades appeared set for success as both Sonofpaco and Prescient broke under pressure from the head of affairs.
But with the wisdom and reflexes developed over more than 4400 race wins, Alford avoided potential disaster, set sail after the leader and bridged a gap of more than 15 metres to come away with the prize.
The final fraction of 30.5 completed a blistering mile rate of 2:04.7 as Maidstone Miss triumphed by 3.2 metres from Aldebaran Shades with Zedalite almost 20 metres astern in third.
As mentioned, the impressive race time also saw Lord of The Gym’s four year old race benchmark usurped by 1.1 seconds and established the 2011 edition of the Redwood Classic as one of the finest in history.
Maidstone Miss will now head back to Maryborough in a fortnight to take on a heat of the Australasian Breeders Crown Series and hopefully book her place in the $164,000 Final at Melton’s Tabcorp Park on ‘Super Sunday’, August 21.
