Brunton has hand on crown

SCOTT Brunton is close to snaring his first trainers’ premiership in his own right following a stellar day at UBET Park Hobart yesterday.

Brunton prepared four winners on the eight-event card to extend his lead to seven over nearest rival Adam Trinder, who trained one winner with Sun Disk in the BM82 Handicap over 2100m.

He stretched his tally to 58 wins and with two meetings remaining is almost certain to win the premiership.

For six seasons Brunton trained in partnership with his father David and they combined to win the premiership each season but at the end of last season David opted for semi-retirement, leaving Scott to branch out on his own.

“While we started out slow we really picked up the pace and while you never really set out to win these things [premierships], when one is in your grasp you naturally want to win it,” Brunton said.

He opened the day with a win by Extended Warranty, a newcomer to the stable.

Formerly with Greg Eurell in Melbourne, the three-yearold filly was backed in to start the $1.20 favourite and did not let her supporters down.

Leading jockey David Pires gave her a gun run just off the speed and when he asked her to extend in the home straight she quickly put the result beyond doubt.

“We picked her up for not a lot of money and while she was not the easiest horse to handle when she first arrived, she settled down and enjoys the open space environment that we offer horses at our beach training complex,” Brunton said.

Aquila Reale won the fol- lowing race the way a $2.30 favourite should, but his next winner, Vigilante, started at $9 and was one of the outsiders in the field of eight.

Tiger Jack ($5.40) made up Brunton’s winning quartet and he was perfectly ridden by Pires who also all but wrapped up the jockey’s premiership.

Pires went into yesterday’s meeting with a four-win lead over Brendon McCoull, who failed to land a winner.

Victorian trainer Kelvin Southey emerged from the meeting with a winner when Runhardt powered home to score a game win over It Could Be You in a maiden-class one handicap over 2100m.

Southey, who is a friend of fellow trainer Paul Maher who has resided in Tasmania for the past 18 months, was convinced by Maher to bring couple of wet trackers to Tasmania for the winter months.

“I took Paul’s advice and brought Runhardt and Foxtrots to Tassie and I’m very glad I took his advice,” he said.

Ironically if was Maher’s horse, It Could Be You, that Runhardt defeated in the race.