By Alex Nolan
Two track records came under threat, a first sectional record was lowered, and Ray and Mary Burman recorded a winning treble in what turned out to be anything but a low-key Monday night meeting at Ipswich.
The Burmans scored a training treble with three dogs from the same Sennachie and Champagne Sally litter via Sir Finley, Tiny Encounter and Blue Hornet.
The latter came within two lengths over lowering his dam’s track record of 29.97 seconds, when he cleared out to win by eight lengths in a blistering 30.07 seconds.
Later, Canya Torque, who the Burmans bred out of Champagne Sally’s full-sister, Magic Hornet, set a new first-sectional record of 13.10 seconds for the 431 metres and careered away to score in 24.64 seconds for trainer Darren Russell.
The record over 431 metres at Ipswich stands at 24.54 seconds.
Mary Burman was the first to admit she didn’t expect to leave Ipswich on Monday night thinking about track records.
“When Sir Finley won it gave the Sennachie and Champagne Sally litter a 100% win record and I can’t ask for much more than that,” she told Racing Queensland on Tuesday.
“They’re all handy little dogs and a couple haven’t been up to it, but they’ve all won.
“To be honest with you, when I was trialling this litter they weren’t running on at all.
“Anyone I spoke to, I told them I was disappointed.
“But, they have just kept improving and improving. They’ve come on in leaps and bounds.”
Blue Hornet has taken up the role as the litter’s flag bearer, but Mary did have plenty of time for Smoking Sam, who went amiss just last month.
Monday’s win took Blue Hornet’s career record to 10 wins from 22 race starts, including the 600 metre QGOLD Emerging Stayers race at Albion Park in December.
“I didn’t think he would run 30.07 seconds, maybe 30.30 seconds,” Mary said.
“He did run at Albion a couple of weeks ago and stopped the clock in 34.65 seconds over 600 metres and that was three lengths off his mother’s track record of 34.43 seconds as well.”
Mary said interstate travel would not be on the agenda for Blue Hornet at this point in time, with Ray continuing his battle with Parkinson’s disease.
She said the quality of prize money at home right now made the decision to keep racing in Queensland much easier.
“He’s very strong,” Mary said.
“I dare say in the future we’ll test him over 700 metres, but we’ll bide our time. I would look at a race like the Young Guns coming up at Ipswich, that’s something worth looking at.
“In years gone by, before the rejuvenated summer carnival, you only had one set of Group races each year. Now, we have feature races throughout the year.”