EQUAL TO TASK

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 32, 6 August 1936, Page 13

EQUAL TO TASK

ROCKS AHEAD IN SPRINT

•Rocks Ahead, who is on the limit of the 2min. 47sec class mile and aqiiarter event at Addington on Saturday,- compiled a splendid record in saddle and'harness last season, but her few unsuccessful efforts over two miles the previous season revealed , that sprinting will probably always be her forte. -.'■:■

She had her first race of the season in. the Caversham Handicap at Forbury Park in November, but did not look at her best, and was beaten into third place by Battlefield and .Whippet. She • did not appear in public again until the next. Forbury Park Meeting in January, and was third in the mile saddle event to Noble Prince and Admiral Bingen. On the second day of the same meeting she won the saddle race from Lynwood and Admiral Bingen in 2min 9 2-ssec, a record for the track under saddle. Again in April her venue was Dunedin, and on a cut-up track she finished a good second to Young Travis in the Renown Handicap, of a mile and three furlongs. Then came her impressive saddle success in the Final Handicap at the Canterbury P.ark Winter Meeting. On a. dead track she won really well in 2min 11 l-ssec, easily the fastest, flat rate registered on the day. • When she finished fourth in the concluding event at Ashburton (won by Noble Prince from'Rongomai and Subsidy), :she was giving 24yds to a select field for the class, .and unofficially she clocked 3min 16sec. for the mile and a-half. That was her last race, and her brilliant run from the half-mile post was one of the fastest ever returned in the class.

. Rocks Ahead is a light-fleshed, dark chestnut mare of the "greyhound" type. She is a seven-year-old, and was got by Happy .Voyage, 2min 4 l-ssec, from First Water, a good pacer herself in Southland and Otagb, and who left the race track with a two-mile record of 4min 35 2-ssec at a period when 4min 30sec was as good as 4min 25sec today. First Water is by Harold Rothschild from Red Diamond, a Prince Imperial mare. Although these are stout staying lines, Rocks Ahead is more ■ noted for her speed, and an analysis of her sprint times shows that she is by no means the least of the good company which ' she is now called upon to meet. •■.•■'■