By Michael Guerin
On a night when getting back in the field was disastrous at Alexandra Park, young driver Carter Dalgety found the best way to overcome it.
He simply decided to let his equine girlfriend Beside Me prove she was the best filly in Friday night’s Caduceus Club Ladyship Stakes and the results were dazzling.
The big girl had made quite an impression in the south but fresh up at Alexandra Park can be very testing at Group level, even more so when you are well back with 1400m to go.
Beside Me was, and then she wasn’t.
Dalgety pulled her out to improve in the straight with a lap to go and she exploded, racing from near last to first in the space of 300m and then roaring clear.
It was graphic stuff from a filly who is looking absolute top class every time she goes to the races. She has now won four from five.
“When I pulled her out I think she thought it was the home straight so she took off,” says Dalgety.
“But she is so strong she can get away with it.
“She is my girlfriend and she is big and strong but such a lovely pacer with it.”
The rivals she beat up on on Friday night can at least rest knowing she won’t be there to pick on them again in the Harness Million next Friday as she is ineligible.
That leaves another impressive Friday night winner in Stella Rouge as favourite for that race and on a collision course with Beside Me in the Northern Oaks next month which will be something to get to The Park for.
What both fillies, and most of the other big race winners on Friday, had in common is they were handy or leading over the last lap but punters paid a a hefty price for those who weren’t.
Rubira led and held on in the Alabar Classic in which hot favourite Marketplace went back at the start and never moved, looking electric over the last 200m but by then the race was over.
In the Lincoln Farms Founders Cup it was the same thing, Jolimont going forward and controlling the speed well enough to get home, his even sectionals of 54.8 and 27.4 seconds meaning those back in the field never had a chance.
Auckland Cup winner Republican Party ran on well.
And in the main trot Oscar Bonavena, also backed as if unbeatable, wasn’t.
He got disconected from the back of Kyvalley Hotspur early but caught him up well enough but never really looked likely to run past him.
Horses starting off 30m handicaps in this grade are often vulnerable and Oscar’s defeat doesn’t take away from the wonderful job Bernie Hacktt and Michelle Wallis are doing with the winner.
“I wanted to make the move mid-race to get him parked as he feels big and strong out there but I wasn’t expecting to get trapped three wide,” smiled winning driver Crystal Hackett.
“But I wanted to win a really nice race for Mum and Dad, it is one of my goals to start the season.”
