Leading trainer Ben Yole touted Rock On Playboy as his country cup contender in early September of 2021, and the gelded son of Rock N Roll Heaven proved his judgement right when scoring in the 2022 Eric Bean Memorial St. Marys Pacing Cup on the 1306m grass track on Tasmania’s East Coast.
Settling in the one-out one-back position, reinsman Dylan Ford pealed the pacer three-wide near the 400m mark before clinging to a half-neck victory over the fast-finishing Resurgent Storm in a mile rate 2m 2.8s for the 2685m event, which was 1.1s outside of Koolaz Elvis’ track and race record.
“He is a really nice horse, and it is great to have him back right, things went wrong for a couple of starts, but we are back on track now,” said winning trainer Ben Yole about the win.
“He won five really fast, and he got up in class. We had a crack at the Golden Apple last month, but things didn’t go right for us, so we just had to get him back right, and we knew that with his win in Devonport last week,” explained the trainer.
Yole will now target the pacer at Friday’s $14,000 North Eastern Pacing Cup at Scottsdale.
“We will run him at Scottsdale in the Cup, but he will be off 20m and then maybe look at the Devonport Cup, but we will just see what happens,” added Yole.
The trainer and part-owner was full of praise for in-form driver Dylan Ford.
“He is one of the best drivers going around, and he drives to his instructions and gives them every chance,” Yole said.
The 6ty Country Guineas was the other highlight of the day, with the race having three-year-old and older pacers in the race but still retained the “Guineas” name.
It was the Mark Reggett prepared Mayleejae Eagle scoring courtesy of a confident drive by Mark Yole, who raced three-wide for the final 900m of the race.
Earlier in the day, eleven-year-old gelding Arctic claimed a track and national record when winning the second race on the card.
The pacer stopped the clock at 2m 13.7s for the 1810m distance, which represented a mile rate of 1m 58.9s, a national record for a standing start event between 1800m to 1899m, breaking the previous record of 2m 0.0s which was held by Celestial Daybreak at Kapunda in South Australia back in 2018.
