Flaming Rose still flawless at Ipswich

By Isaac Murphy

Last Friday’s heats of the Ipswich Auction Sprint series revealed the top contenders for Saturday night’s semis and unsurprisingly, Jason Schmidt’s Flaming Rose put her hand up as one to beat.

After improving her record to five from five at the track and trip, her trainer is confident she’ll only go quicker come race time.

“The series looked pretty good for her given the success she’s had over the 431 at Ipswich, but I was pretty relieved to get through the heat,” Schmidt said.

“She’d had a very light week after pulling up a bit sore from her 500-metre debut, but she did what she had to do.

“To run 25.11 and keep her winning record intact is great for her confidence in this week’s semis, she’s had a much better week this week and if she races up to her potential, she should be qualifying and peaking for the Final.

“She’s going to need the run; Little Byrnes is a deserved favourite for the series - he’s run some serious time around there and we need to be under 25 seconds to compete and same goes for Borneo Bandit for my brother Craig (Schmidt) who went 25.07.”

Flaming Rose has started her career in a blaze of glory, a winner at Ipswich, Albion and Capalaba over varying distances leading to an outstanding record.

“We certainly weren’t expecting her to go 10 from 12 with a couple of seconds, but she did always stand out as a pup breaking in, she was running times that were race dog times and was definitely the pick of the litter,” Schmidt said.

“Myself and my brother Craig along with my nephew all helped out in breeding the Aston Dee Bee/Jay Bay Queen litter; we sold four to Victoria, one to Western Australia and kept a hold of Flaming Rose and Borneo Bandit.

“We always pick one each to train and own and when we gave them a squeaker at three months, she was the keenest, so I was quick to call dibs on her and Craig got Borneo Bandit and on there performances we kept the right two.”

Schmidt knew he had something good early on and has nurtured that talent to produce a serious race bitch.

“I could see she was going to be a hell of a chaser as a pup, we had to put her in against race dogs and she was beating them, I think that early competition helped her learn how to win,” he said.

“It’s pretty amazing she’s five from five over the 431 at Ipswich, a lot can go wrong on that corner but she just finds a way to win whether it’s in fast or slow time - you can’t teach that.

“As she’s gone through her grades, I think she senses when she’s got a bit of a challenge of her hands, she did it when she was able to beat Little Byrnes late last year and will hopefully rise to the occasion again if she can make the final.”

Flaming Rose will look to close her shortcourse career in style by winning the Sprint series, and Schmidt is set to get her back to the 500-metre start where she was so impressive on debut.

“I gave her a couple of post-to-posts at Albion before her 500-metre debut, the times were good and I was fairly confident she’d run it out, but 30.03 was a surprise and I was even happier with her 12.87 run home,” he said.

“There’s great money on offer in the Sprint series, but the big dollars come over the traditional 520-metre Auction Series, which she should be a huge chance in on her home track.

“Padding her record and going through the grades has been exciting but there comes a time where you need to step up; she might go through a few growing pains over the 500, but I’m confident that’ll be her trip going forward.”