Ten out of ten for Sixty-One
Ghostly grey Gold Ten Sixty-One had his rivals chasing shadows in the $50,000 Class 4 Division 2 race over 1,200m, Sunday’s last race.
Widely tipped as the nap of the day, Gold Ten Sixty-One (Vlad Duric, $8) certainly did not let his legion of backers down.
Taking the lead from the get-go, the $8 favourite utilised his high cruising speed to demoralise his rivals through the mid-sections before going into overdrive upon straightening.
Renzo (Fahmi Rosman) and Hugo (Marc Lerner) did give a fleeting impression they could peg the runaway leader back, but Duric had obviously been able to give his mount a breather mid-race and keep something up his sleeve.
The son of Dalghar, whose last two outings came in Group company with creditable runs in the three-year-old races, kept finding to hit the line with plenty of space to spare.
Hugo finished second, 3½ lengths away and 1¼ lengths ahead of Renzo. The winning time for the 1,200m on Polytrack was 1min 10.86sec.
By saving the best for last, trainer Tim Fitzsimmons was able to claw his way back to the top after Donna Logan earlier knocked in a double (Aftermath and Eastiger) to tie with him on 37 winners.
The Australian regains the lamplighter’s mantle with a narrow lead on 38 winners, but will rue many wasted chances, like Intrepid and Dream Alliance (second), while well-backed debutant Typhoon was scratched after getting kicked behind the barriers.
Get The New Paper on your phone with the free TNP app. Download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store now
