It’s A Blaze Destroys Addington Track Record. Golden Chase Run and Won
Tuesday meetings at Addington Raceway are not where track records are generally registered, and it took a special greyhound to turn that theory on its head. The Jean & Dave Fahey trained It’s A Blaze to that point had already registered a lightning 29.64s last month and improved on that time further as he found the lead a lap out from a serviceable box 8 draw. The son of Fernando Bale and It’s A Fling powered right away from the field down the back and into the home straight, posting a 6 length 29.42s demolition of Bago Bye Bye’s 29.59s run back in October 2018. Tokyo Bird’s time for second place in the low 29.70s would have won any other race that week. The Craig Roberts prepared bitch looks like an Oaks prospect in the making a month out from heats.
The same quinella took place Monday at Addington as It’s A Blaze chalked up win 8 from start 12, in a time of 29.92s as he worked through some early traffic before passing Tokyo Bird on the back straight. The only two defeats It’s A Blaze has had in New Zealand to date were both taken out by Opawa Oliver at big odds for Robin Wales. With new sand being placed on the Addington surface this week it would be hard to see the record time of 29.42s being surpassed for a while to come.
Federal Morgan added another piece of silverware to his ever-growing collection after another feature race victory on Thursday afternoon. The Lisa Cole trained Scott Eaton owned star picked up his share of the $25,000 stakes with the fastest run of 25.50s over the 457m. 6 of the 8 runners broke the 26-second benchmark despite the track not playing as fast as previous weeks. Federal Morgan has now won 10 of his 11 New Zealand races, and is as dominant as ever in these match race type fixtures.
The opening match race saw Drink Shoeys fly to an early lead from box one over his opponent Broke Brad, increasing the margin at every sectional on the way to a very handy 25.59s. Portland Berty was very bold defeating Nangar Ridge in a nice time of 25.68s, however was only enough for fourth place at the completion of the match races. He and Nangar Ridge will both compete at Cambridge this Thursday for the heats of the 2021 edition of the New Zealand Derby. Federal Morgan’s winning run took place in the third and penultimate race where he was far too good for Tekki Jim exploding from the traps once again. The final match race saw Pedro Lee cross Big Time Pluto early before running through the line in a 25.61s which gave him third place just behind kennel mate Drink Shoeys for trainer Peter Ferguson.
Written by Shane Kendall