Orchard blossoms in Sheffield's feature race

Stuart Mason was the in-form trainer at Sheffield on Tuesday

  PICTURE:STEVE NASH  

SHEFFIELD had the open race stage to themselves on Tuesday
night with four quality events on their Bags Programme.

First up was a 280-metre dash for which National Sprint finalist Lily Mayday was all the rage. However, George Oswald's black missed his break and it was left to Stuart Mason's July 07 greybeard Step On Lee (4-1) to end a losing run of 12 and bring home the prize in 16.15sec.

The 500-metre Standard at 7.58 was a five-runner contest (T3 Vacant) for which Clerihan Gold came late and fast to thieve the prize.
Stepaside Bigjak and Blackshaw Stacie had a ding-dong buckle from the second bend and just as the latter was getting on top -
John Sharp's brindle pounced to score in 29.51sec.

A Super Stayers (720m) contest at 8.14 had attracted one or two familiar faces and it produced the finish of the night.
Yahoo Dillon set a fast and furious pace but looked a sitting duck when Stepaside Glenis (6-4F) loomed up large at the fifth bend.
Rubio had also made good headway but seemed reluctant to leave the rails and decided to sit and suffer.
Either the leader found more or the jolly wasn't too keen to go by but Harry Crapper's front runner held on by the skin of his teeth to score by two short-heads in 43.81sec

Last but not least was a red-hot 500m Standard and Mason rounded off a good night when his Graigues Orchard, who was beaten odds-on in as four-runner race here seven days ago, showed superior early pace to dominate the contest from the first bend and record 29.25sec.