Million-dollar club beckons star
STAR Tasmanian sprinter Hellova Street has been installed an equal favourite in most corporate bookmaker markets to score a first-up win in the Seppelt Wines Victorian Sprint Series final over 1200m at Flemington today.
Hellova Street and the Robbie Griffiths-trained Divine Quality share the top line of betting at $5.50.
Hellova Street hasn’t raced since finishing third at Flemington in the Group 2 Blamey Stakes (1600m) in which he finished only 1¼ lengths behind Humidor at the end of a long preparation.
During that preparation he snared the Thomas LyonsMowbray Stakes feature weight-for-age double, which came after a Victorian campaign that netted the Scott Brunton-trained gelding a win in the Group 3 Chatham Stakes (1400m) at Flemington in November.
Brunton is keen for his stable star to earn $1 million in stakes and victory today would carry the gelding’s career earnings beyond that amount.
Hellova Street’s career record is arguably the best of any Tasmanian sprinter in the past 10 years, having won 16 of his 38 starts along with 16 minor placings, many of which have been in listed or feature races for career stake earnings of $921,375.
“If ever a horse deserved to crack the million in stake earnings it’s this horse,” Brunton said. “I get emotional whenever I talk about Hellova Street because for so long he seemed to fly under the radar even while he was winning most of the feature sprint races in Tassie.
“It’s not like that these days because he’s been so successful interstate but he is a very special horse to me”
Hellova Street goes into this assignment on the back of two trials that he won on the Hobart track last month.
“Hellova Street travelled to Melbourne Wednesday night on the boat,” Brunton said. “He’s travelled well, he loves Flemington and this is the race I targeted for his first-up assignment some time back.”
Divine Quality opened at $10 with Ladbrokes but was quickly backed in to $7 and late yesterday the talented fouryear-old mare had tightened to $5.50.
Also in the market were Labuan Star which firmed from $9 into $7.50, while the other two Darren Weir-trained runners Man From Uncle and Camdus have been backed at $6 and $7.50 respectively.