Track bias favoured leaders

Fieldofdreams had no problems with the track on his way to winning the Swiss Ace 2YO Challenge at Ruakaka on Saturday. Photo / Supplied

If anyone can remember a more fierce track bias than Ruakaka on Saturday, good luck to them.

In Sydney they call an inside strip that favours on-pace runners a rail that's "on fire".

That doesn't go anywhere near to describing the Ruakaka bias that got eight of the 10 leaders home and the remaining two from in the trail.

Anything that got back and went out wide to try and go forward simply couldn't make progress.

One of the few to fill a placing from the back was Pentango, who used the inside rail to run on and finish second to winning pacemaker Shandream.

There is almost always nothing a racing club can do to avoid a racing bias apart from when a track is very used and the rail is moved back in a few metres with a strip of unused ground against the rail.

The best way out of this one is to watch the replays and take note of all the horses that got three wide and wider in the home straight. Forgive almost every one of them.

At least Ruakaka was able to race.

There would have been few northern tracks able to provide a surface after the week's torrential rain.

And they ran times. What about 1:11.03 for 1200m, compared with the 1:19.03 at Trentham and its 1200m is the fastest section of the track in the wet?

Highlight ran 1600m in 1:37.25 at Ruakaka, compared with the 1:58.49 it took them at Trentham.

That's hardly horse racing and it points out how desperately we need all-weather surfaces for midwinter racing.

No, not all artificial surfaces are ideal and many punters in Australia are not keen on betting on them, but show us the bettors who enjoyed punting on the flat races at Trentham.

The old saying "oh well, that's winter racing" doesn't cut it any more.

If that's winter racing leave us out of it. There are plenty who have already made that decision.

Stephen McKee went to Ruakaka pretty confident of two ambitions, that Fieldofdreams could win the $20,000 Swiss Ace 2YO Challenge, which meant he would walk away with the trainer's bonus for most points in a three-race series.

That happened, but yesterday McKee still wasn't certain whether the bonus was $3000 or $5000,

"Let's say it's $5000," joked McKee.

From a wide gate, Fieldofdreams had been caught four wide throughout the second race of the series and had done well to finish only 2.8 lengths from one of Saturday's favourites, Prestigious Miss.

This time he sat on the speed and was too strong late.

Prestigious Miss paid the price for getting out towards the centre of the track, a strip that did not produce a winner all day.

Another of the favourites, Perfect Katch, was even wider after being run off the track by the wayward Ishi Red at the 600m.

McKee said Fieldofdreams would be kept going for the early season guineas races.

There are many ways to get into a horse - buying a broodmare off Trade Me for $700 is one of them.

Former rider Rodney Heaslip picked up Oh So Easy off Trade Me and bred Ruakaka winner El Menear.

"The mare had been bought at the Westbury dispersal and foaled to Captain Rio and the owners didn't want her after that.

"I had the dairy at Thames at the time and wanted to get into a horse."

Soon after that Heaslip got back into working with horses, first for the Moroney team and then with Paul Jenkins.

He now runs the deli section of a Kaikohe supermarket.

"This filly hasn't always had a lot of luck. She resumed at Te Rapa recently and was only a length and a half from the winner. Noel Harris jumped off and said: 'This wins next start'.

"She goes all right."

El Menear is trained at Ruakaka by Derek Allen, the son of Rodney Heaslip's brother Alton, who shares in El Menear's ownership. Allen rides work for the Logan team.

Even allowing for the leader's bias, Highlight displayed a ton of ticker to win the $30,000 Aussie Butcher Series Final at Ruakaka.

She was headed in the home straight, but refused to be beaten and kicked back to win by half a head.

Cap Eden Roc was equally brave in lunging late for second.

The under-rated Keep Kruis produced a similar effort to win at Trentham. She was buffeted quite badly at the top of the home straight, but rallied beautifully to keep out Bases Loaded who was going for four straight.

Good luck to Brompton, Ian, Shirley and Gary Alton and David Walsh, but when a rising 10-year-old R76 horse can win one of our major flat handicaps by 14 lengths it tells you it's all about who can handle the conditions more than anything else.