Racing: Lancome punches out rivals

Addington review:

* The Mark Purdon juggernaut continued their domination of feature 3-year-old fillies' races this season when producing Lancome to easily win the $180,000 PGG Wrightson NZYS Final at Addington Raceway yesterday.

Lancome was punched straight to the front by regular driver Blair Orange and was rated to perfection unleashing closing 800m and 400m sectionals of 56.4 seconds and 27s to win by two lengths over Indulge.

A further half-head away in third position was Meredith Maguire.

Uncontested leaders are hard to catch in sprint feature events at Addington and the daughter of Courage Under Fire blasted over the 1950m in 2:21.5 (mile rate 1:56.7) making it impossible for anything to make up significant ground from the rear of the field.

* Sit-sprint pacer Monkey King delivered another faultless display of sprint racing when easily winning the $70,000 Summer Cup.

The hot favourite enjoyed an economical sit behind pace making stable mate Baileys Dream and was pulled out into the middle of the track on the home turn to challenge the leaders.

Monkey King took a little longer than expected to reel in the leaders but showed his class over the closing 100m to win by a length over Ohoka Dallas with a neck back to Baileys Dream (third).

The 7-year-old covered the 2600m in 3:12.2 (mile rate 1:58.9) with closing 800m and 400m sectionals of 56.8s and 27.5s.

When Monkey King is given an economical sit close to the lead he is a daunting rival to defeat in any Free-For-All event in Australasia.

Regular driver Ricky May has a knack of getting the gelding into on-the-speed positions and has formed a deadly combination with the sit-sprint star.