ELEGANT AND SLICK
Lightly-raced mare Elegant Grooves claimed a metropolitan victory at just her sixth career start on Saturday night.
Owned by Joedy and Gary Whitaker, the pair had trained the troublesome mare who has only started her racing career as a four-year-old this season.
Winning three of her first four starts, including a debut victory by over 40 metres, the decision was made to send the mare to Graham Dwyer to continue her progress after she was sent for a spell in March.
Resuming with a smart first-up win, the four-year-old was thrown in the deep end on Saturday to tackle experienced mares and the result was electrifying.
Three-wide through the opening 600 metres, Layne Dwyer finally got outside the leader with 1000 metres to travel but continued to maintain the speed.
Forging to the front with 500 metres to travel, Elegant Grooves continued the hard tempo, claiming a four-metre winning margin.
Stopping the clock in a rate of 1.51.8, how far can Elegant Grooves go?
INTER BOUND
The second round rankings for the 2024 Inter Dominion have been released and across the weekend some Queenslanders lower on the list produced strong performances.
Always Smokin improved from 65 to 61 following the initial rankings and should be climbing higher off his performance on Saturday night.
Leading throughout in 1.49.6, the win placed Always Smokin equal second for the quickest mile ever recorded at 'The Creek', and just the fourth pacer to break the 1.50 barrier.
Later in the evening, Aroda, who is ranked 85 in the 'ID24' rankings, yet 22 in the NZ Cup rankings, was able to claim a gritty win, sitting parked and fighting off the challengers in a 27.3 second closing panel to post a 1.53.0 mile.
In Saturday night’s trotters race, five of the seven contestants that did battle are in the Inter Dominion nominations.
Top Of The Moment sprinted sharply over the closing stages to grab victory from Is That A Bid, with the winner one of the two runners not in the 'ID24' nominations.
Dropping from 32 to 36 from the initial to second rankings, Is That A Bid was only beaten a half-neck behind the winner.
Gus, currently ranked 16, was resuming from a spell on Saturday and his night ended with a steward’s embargo to return to the trials after galloping twice in the run.