Ken Casellas | Photo: PACEPIX
“It’s definitely in her sights; she’s only four once,” said ace driver Deni Roberts after driving champion mare Aardiebytheseaside to an all-the-way victory in the $150,000 Westral Mares Classic at Gloucester Park on Friday night.
Roberts was referring to the plans for Aardiebytheseaside to contest the $200,000 Golden Nugget on December 13.
If Aardiebytheseaside, prepared by champion trainers Greg and Skye Bond, pulls up satisfactorily after Friday night’s win she will run in the $125,000 Four-Year-Old Classic over 2130m next Friday night before lining up in the 2536m Golden Nugget two weeks later.
Roberts firmly believes that Aardiebytheseaside has the ability to defeat the State’s best four-year-old horses and geldings in the Nugget, a major event on the West Australian harness racing calendar which has been run 43 times with only two mares winning the race.
Countess Kala and Libertybelle Midfrew are the only mares to have won the Nugget, with Lindsay Harper driving Countess Kala when she beat Make The Rules and Paulas Mate in a thrilling three-way photo finish in December 1999, and Mark Reed scoring with Libertybelle Midfrew, who beat Waylade by two metres in December 2014.
The other mares who have been placed in the Golden Nugget are: Whitbys Miss Penny (1992), Norms Daughter (1995), Black And Blue (2000), Lombo La Fe Fe and Party Date (2004), Spicey Hot (2005) and Maczaffair (2017).
“We will see how Aardiebytheseaside pulls up after her win tonight,” said Roberts. “She is a chance of running next Friday night, with the Nugget coming up two weeks later.
“Obviously, these events for four-year-olds will be tougher for Aardiebytheseaside than racing in mares’ company. She would need a good draw. She went up against the Free-For-Allers and took care of them, with a nice draw (leading and winning from Talks Up A Storm and Sangue Reale the 2536m August Cup this year).”
Aardiebytheseaside was the $1.40 favourite from barrier two in Friday night’s classic when she began speedily and was able to withstand an early challenge from the $4.60 second fancy Steno, while the polemarker and $14 chance Our Sandy Shore galloped badly at the start and trailed her rivals throughout.
Peaceful ($17) dashed forward three wide in the first lap to move to the breeze after about 650m, with Steno then enjoying an ideal trip, one-out and one-back, and with Wonderful To Fly ($18) trailing the pacemaker.
After opening quarters of the final mile in 29.7sec. and 29.3sec. Aardiebytheseaside sprinted over the third 400m section in 27.6sec., with the final quarter taking 28.4sec.
Wonderful To Fly got into the clear approaching the home turn and ran home strongly to finish second, a neck behind Aardiebytheseaside, with Steno finishing strongly, out three wide, to be a close-up third.
The New Zealand-bred Aardiebytheseaside rated 1.57 and she has earned $484,828 from 17 wins and eight placings from 32 starts. Her eleven WA starts have produced nine wins.
“Things didn’t work out exactly to plan,” said Roberts. “I was confident we would hold out Steno at the start, but then Aardiebytheseaside decided to overrace in the middle stages, which is where things went downhill a little, and I couldn’t rate her like I wanted to.
“She always lets them (the opposition) get close to her, but she doesn’t let them get past her.”