Exciting young harness racing mare Sweet Ideal (Dear Lou) will continue the success of Victoria’s Western Districts in Melton on Saturday evening.
Tree-trotting mares Keayang Zahara and Jilliby Ballerini – trained at Ecklin South near Terang by Marg and Paddy Lee – have been standard bearers for the region in recent weeks, but will both get Saturday off.
Sweet Ideal, on the other hand, has enjoyed a break at 71-year-old trainer Gary Lawlor’s Camperdown grounds and returns to the track this week.
“It’s an exciting time in our part of the world,” Lawlor said. “Those trotting mares are amazing, aren’t they?
“Last week they ran home in under 55 seconds and they are four-year-old trotters. You would love a pacer to go that fast and the pacers should be that much faster.”
“You can almost see a time when the pacers and trotters will race together because the gap seems to be closing so much.”
Sweet Ideal has already done her bit for the Western Districts with 15 starts, good for eight wins and four placings.
Now it’s time to chase her first feature win in next month’s $100,000 Vicbred final in Melton on November 29.
But Lawlor warned that Sweet Ideal would not have a run this week.
“We’re not like the big stables that can work six or seven horses together and get them really fit at home,” he said.
“Even finding suitable tests is not easy. Darryl (Lawlor’s son) said we just have to race her back to top condition.
“We took her to the Geelong trial on Monday but she only had two rivals, and they were two and three-year-olds. I’m not sure we got much out of it.”
“She can do this run and maybe another run before the heats of the Vicbred (in Bendigo on July 12).”
Sweet Ideal, who has not raced since winning at Melton on July 26, will start from outside the back row (gate nine) against her own gender in the fourth race on Saturday evening.
“I like the draw. It means she’s sitting two in the back row and following Pet Kitty, who will start well. It means she has to push through and settle in front of a pair and not all the way at the back,” Lawlor said.
“She is a star. We love her. She is so good that even if she performs poorly, she can win it, but we will push her to run against them one last time.”
“It is not only the right way to ride her first, but also important to teach her to become a better racehorse.
“Sometimes she has no idea what she’s doing, she’s only had 15 starts and she’s up against a horse like Pet Kitty, who has raced 120 times.”
Lawlor said he was in no rush to take on some of Australia’s best mares in a series of feature races early next year.
“We’re just not in a rush with her. She’s still young and learning, we’ll take our time to develop her into the best mare she can be,” he said.
Through Adam Hamiltonfor Harness Racing Victoria
#Sweet #Ideal #ready #resume