Star pacing filly to race on Tuesday

Press, 25 January 1986, Page 26

Star pacing filly to race on Tuesday

By

JEFF SCOTT

Canterbury light harness followers will get their first glimpse of New Zealand’s leading two-year-old pacing filly, Coma Berenices, at Addington Raceway on Tuesday, but because of lack of suitable juvenile fillies’ races in the south, it will be one of only three South Island appearances she is likely to make this season. The Yaldhurst-trained daughter of Smooth Fella and Winsome Tricks (by Overtrick) has done all her racing to date in the Auckland-Waikato area, winning three and gaining a second and a fourth from five starts for earnings of $14,890. Added to that, she has also run the season’s fastest mile for a two-year-old filly of 2min 3.4 s back on November 8, a time her part-owner and trainer, Ron Dalziel, is quietly confident of lowering with Coma Berenices given favourable conditions in the Robert Cameron mile for fillies at Ashburton next month. Coma Berenices will make her Canterbury debut in the Peter Noble Adams Iseki Pace from 10m behind over 2000 m at the New Zealand Metropolitan meeting next week. “I gave her a let-up after winning at Auckland last month,” Dalziel said, "and have her set for the Cameron Mile on February 22." “There are two meetings at Addington between Tuesday and the Cameron Stakes, both open to colts and geldings as well over 2000 m, and she’ll probably need to start in one of those as well,” Dalziel said. Dalziel rates her latest win at Alexandra Park on

December 13 as her best performance to date, winning easily in 2min 3.7 s for the mile. “I didn’t even have to move the reins or stick,” he said. “We went through the half In Imin 1.9 s and for a moment I thought about having a go at the fillies’ record (Lady Alba holds the New Zealand record for a two-year-old filly at 2min 1.55), but decided against it in view of the amount of racing she has to get through this term.” Dalziel has found it difficult to plan races for the leading’ filly in the South Island for the remainder of the season. “The most prestigious event for fillies in the south is the New Zealand Leonard Memorial at Cheviot on April 12, run the same day as the $12,000 Thames Debutante Stakes, so I know where I will be,” he said. It is unfortunate for Dalziel, and other trainers looking for races in the south restricted to juvenile fillies, that the Ashburton Trotting Club, which holds the Cameron Stakes, is racing on the same day as the Invercargill Trotting Club’s traditional Ladles Day meeting. The Invercargill club will also stage a two-year-old fillies event, theirs being over 2200 m. Coma Berenices, from the family that has produced other wellperformed fillies in Winsome Star (Edgar Tatlow Stakes in Sydney, P 3; 2mln 00.35), Patrona Glow (nine wins) and Winsome Glow (four wins), will thus have another freshener after racing at Ashburton before being prepared for Auckland again, and miss the New Zealand Kindergarten Stakes, the Timaru Nur-

sery Stakes and the New Zealand Welcome Stakes in the south. After the Thames Debutante in April, the Yaldhurst trainer hopes to race his precocious filly in two other Important northern fillies’ races, the $11,500 Andrea Biani Stakes on May 10, and a major fillies event to be run in conjunction with the Caduceus Club in Auckland at the end of July, which could be worth up to $30,000, according to Dalziel. In fact, Coma Berenices, named after one of the brightest constellations in the northern sky when the owners were refused several names featuring the breed’s trademark of Star and Glow, is lucky to be racing at all after an infection opened up after her third start in the north.

The “star” filly was being treated by a former Canterbury veterinarian, Mr Dick Hopkirk, for a lump the size of a tennis ball just above the knee in her off-front leg. “Her hopple took the top of it off and besides losing blood, the muscle fibre was also discharging. The treatment reduced it down to nothing, . but we were a bit worried for a while — we were told she might only have a 50-50 chance of racing again because of possible muscle damage,” said Dalziel.

Dalziel, who races the fourth-line descendant of the great mare, Arania (12 wins, Imin 575) in partnership with Dr Bruce Todd, of Christchurch, has no intentions of taking the filly to Australia at this ’stage.

“We have a few of our own over there anyway,” he said.