Jason Rulz too classy
Woodend pacer Jason Rulz produced an action replay of his Reefton Cup win, sprinting to victory in the Golden Edge Nelson Cup Prelude on the first day of the Nelson Harness Racing Club’s meeting at Richmond Park.
The speedy Courage Under Fire gelding unleashed a lethal finish to win at Reefton on December 30 and yesterday delivered more of the same to win the Cup Prelude over 2400 metres.
Jason Rulz will now start tomorrow’s Nelson Cup as red hot favourite after making a quality field of pacers look ordinary.
Driver Ricky May had Jason Rulz nicely placed one back on the outside in yesterday’s race after making a steady start from the 10m mark. May waited patiently as first Lively Shard and then Kid Galahad set the pace before letting off the brakes in the straight to dash to a two-length win.
Cup contenders Paradise City and Lively Shard had no excuses, finishing second and third respectively, while second favourite Hurricane Bromac ran home steadily for fifth.
‘‘He’s got some real speed and the Reefton win didn’t take anything out of him so we thought he’d go pretty well today,’’ Woodend cotrainer Nina Hope said of Jason Rulz.
Although Hope said Jason Rulz had won its last two races in style, she already knew he was something special after posting sensational sectional times on his way to winning at Addington on November 30.
‘‘He did a 26.1 [-second] last quarter in a junior driver’s race at Add- ington. They said it was the fastest quarter for a 2600-metre race at Addington so we knew he was really fast.’’
Jason Rulz has now won eight races from 19 starts for owners Richard Dellaca and Jason Yang, both of Westport, and Hope’s husband and co-trainer Greg. Dellaca is also the breeder of Jason Rulz who was named after Yang.
May completed back-to-back wins when he extracted favourite Fiery Del from an impossible position to take out the More FM Pace.
Fiery Del was hopelessly placed three back on the inside entering the straight but somehow May managed to weave a path through on the inside to win by 11⁄ lengths.
The promising Fiery Del looks set to complete a double for the meeting and a hat-trick when he lines up in the HR Admin-CB Marketing Mobile Pace tomorrow. Natural Courage and Lumos are other first-day winners who showed enough to suggest they could complete a double for the meeting.
Natural Courage was particularly impressive, cruising to a four-length win in the Saxton Lodge-Accessman Mobile Pace and is likely to be favourite again in tomorrow’s Forsyth Barr-Hunterbond Mobile Pace.
Lumos will also start in that race after winning his debut in the Hoani Jack Cup Mobile Pace.
Jass was the best of the Nelson horses, capitalising on an economical run to finish second in the Christian Cullen Canterbury Mares Series Mobile Pace over 1609m.
The Robert Stuart-trained mare will start in the Nelson Cup on day two.
The first race starts at 12.35pm tomorrow.