Five-year-old Vultan Tin is flourishing under the care of Coolup owner-trainer Phil Costello and he has bright prospects of ending a losing sequence of nine by winning the 2536m In Memory of Fred Hough Pace at Gloucester Park on Friday night.
He will start out wide at barrier seven in the field of nine and reinsman Chris Voak is planning to drive the gelding “tough” in a bid for victory. Vultan Tin put the writing on the wall last Friday night when he raced in the breeze for the final two laps and fought on grandly to be a close second to the pacemaker Ideal Alice.
“He sat in the breeze in a Free-For-All last week and went down by a half-length,” Voak said. “So, I’d say he’d be comfortable in the breeze again. We’ll wait for him to settle and then he’ll be put in the race and driven positively. He’s dropping back to an M1/M3 field and should be hard to beat.”
“I got the drive behind Vultan Tin by chance. Morgan Woodley was his regular driver, but in a race back in May Morgan elected to drive the $1.20 favourite Argyle Red and I got the opportunity to drive Vultan Tin for the first time. He performed like a super star that night and got up at 25/1 from Argyle Red. I’ve been fortunate to drive Vultan Tin since then and he hasn’t run a bad race for me.”
Since that victory Voak has driven Vultan Tin 11 times for two wins, four seconds and two fourths and the gelding now has a record of 77 starts for 11 wins and 23 placings for earnings of $144,144.
Blinding Light, trained by Greg and Skye Bond and driven by Ryan Warwick, looks the hardest for Vultan Tin to beat. Blinding Light enjoyed an ideal passage, one-out and one-back, before finishing strongly to be second to Sprinter over 2130m last Friday night.
