Sterlish ground his rivals into submission with a dominant front-running display at Moonee Valley last night
Ever improving four-year-old gelding Sterlish last night upstaged some of his more glamorous rivals to take out the $25,000 SEW-Eurodrive Spring Championship Final and take another step towards his destiny as one of Victoria’s newest rising stars.
Trained by astute conditioner Tony Peacock, who also had the marginally better supported gelding Mister GNP engaged in the race, Sterlish, aided by a typically positive and daring drive from Brian Gath, gave his rivals a masterclass in top-flight racing by turning an event packed full of withering speed into an old fashioned staying test - and coming out on top.
As theorists and form guru’s argued amongst themselves as to what would transpire when runners left the mobile, Lance Justice’s fleet-footed four-year-old Coastal made light of his extreme front-line draw to spear to the early lead, thereby changing the complexion of an already difficult race to read from the outset.
In a more predictable turn of events Coastal, second-up form a spell, was restrained to take cover, but not as most had envisaged behind Geoff Webster’s short priced favourite Mister Zion, but Gath and Sterlish, who employed their superior versatility and toughness to roll to the top through a very slippery lead time of 34.2-seconds.
From there, the race was over as a contest. Dictating the pace to a nicety through a comfortable 62.7-second first half of the last mile, Peacock’s gifted son of Falcon Seelster began to increase the tempo running into the back straight for the final time whilst his main danger Mister Zion was left three-wide and exposed on the course.
Approaching the home straight a courageous Mister Zion had already defied two conspicuous flat-spots in his endeavours to wind up late and was still grinding away, whilst Coastal, who had enjoyed the privileged run behind the leader and Jaccka Sandy, superbly driven into the three-wide trail, appeared the only dangers to the eventual winner.
But any doubts over whether Sterlish, a former Kiwi who has improved astonishingly in recent starts, would see out the feature race were allayed half way down the running as he reeled off a 58.3-second last half to compliment an impressive 1:58.9 mile rate to defeat the game and unbowed Mister Zion and last season’s Tontine winner Jaccka Sandy .
In an interesting twist Damian Wilson, who was given the choice between driving Sterlish or Mister GNP, both of whom he had driven to heat success the previous week, pulled the wrong rein, selecting Mister GNP who was obliged to race in the unsuitable position outside his stablemate and faded late into fifth place as a consequence.
In the night’s other feature race, the MHRC Classic, proven class prevailed over budding potential when the outstanding open class pacer Cincinnati Kid took full advantage of the absence of Leviathan pacers Melpark Major and Smoken Up to triumph over the unlucky Tanabi Bromac.
Both horses are likely to head towards a return clash in next Saturday night’s $60,000 Decron Cranbourne Cup, which is shaping to be one of the highlights of the Choice Hotels Country Cup Carnival for 2009/2010.
