Shadow Sax blitzes home
Classy pacer Shadow Sax notched up his fifth cup victory of the season with a brilliant front-running performance in the $50,000 The Weekly Advertiser Horsham Pacing Cup.
The five-year-old gelded son of Shadow Play USA and Miss Saxony scorched home with a blistering turn of back-end pace to street his rivals at Horsham Racing Centre.
The in-form pacer started the race as $1.30 favourite in the warm, still and sunny conditions after collecting cup trophies at Stawell, Geelong, Globe Derby Park and Cranbourne.
He then proceeded to add the Horsham cup to the crowded mantelpiece of his Brighton owner-breeders Russell and Pam Hockham.
The result took Shadow Sax’s career statistics to 20 wins and eight minor placings from 31 starts, for $485,989 in prize money.
A record of 10 wins from 13 starts this season had Russell Hockham wearing a broad grin after the race.
“It’s really hard to find a good one. But this one certainly is,” he said.
“No one would have beaten him with a run like that.”
After the race, trainer Emma Stewart said Shadow Sax was unlikely to line up in Saturday night’s Shepparton Pacing Cup.
She said a short break awaited the in-form runner, with a winter campaign in Queensland the most likely option for her future Grand Circuit performer.
The Stewart stable trained both first and second home in the 2017 edition of Horsham’s Pacing Cup and repeated the effort on Sunday with Berisari and Nathan Jack in the sulky, coming in 2.8 metres behind the Chris Alford-driven winner.
For veteran reinsman Alford, with more than 6000 winners on the board, Sunday would be a day to remember, with Shadow Sax giving him his first victory in a Horsham Pacing Cup.
The 10-race cup meeting, which had switched from a summer calendar, provided a snapshot into the potential of the new autumn scheduling.
An enthusiastic sporting crowd that turned up trackside despite an awkward scheduling clash with a Sunday football match in Horsham, suggested the meeting had plenty of scope to grow and flourish in the future.
The relaxing picnic atmosphere that accompanies harness racing was in stark contrast to intense action on the track.
Some of the races featured super-slick times and close finishes as horses and drivers made the most of ideal conditions.
The Weekly Advertiser, in recognising the broad community feel surrounding harness racing in Horsham, jumped on board as major sponsor this year.
ACE Radio Horsham manager Brendan O’loughlin said he was delighted the newspaper was involved and presented the cup to the winners.