Peacemaker lands the Swindon Produce final
Swindon: home of the British Produce Stakes, won by Peacemaker
PICTURE: STEVE NASHPEACEMAKER (2-1F) showed good early pace to overcome an apparently tough draw in four and land the £15,000 final of the 66th British-bred Two-Year-Old Produce Stakes over 480m at Swindon.
Trainer John Millard had expressed concerns about the quick turnaround from the semi-final on Wednesday, but Peacemaker showed no signs of tiredness as he outspeeded fast-starting Chilli Hot Sauce into the bend and took command at that point.
Romeo Recruit, slowly away and who enjoyed far from a clear run, eventually extricated himself from the pack and stayed on strongly, but Peacemaker had flown and scored by three lengths in his quickest actual time of the event, 28.47sec (+30).
Fancied runners generally thrived on the supporting card with victories for Forest Ronaldo (4-9F), Westmead Adonis (4-7F) and Barnish Booth (2-1), although there was a shock in the 685m open where Ray Evans’s Lemon Angel (16-1) got the run of the race from the front.
Crayford’s celebration of the record 233rd race for Lagile Soviet turned sour as Ian Stevens’s veteran checked immediately out of the traps and was ultimately caught by the trackstaff as he failed to finish.
However, there was quickly encouraging news with Crayford general manager reporting the September 2005 veteran to be suffering nothing worse than a recurrence of a strained hock. Stanton said: “There were so many people concerned about ‘Boris’ and there were tears when he was able to walk across to pick up his trophy.”
New Wimbledon trainer Malcolm Backhurst saw his Fawn Cloverhill win a 480m open at the Plough Lane track for the third Saturday in succession as the 3-1 chance proved too strong for long-time leader Kingsmill Super late on to score in 28.79sec.
In Ireland, Fraser Black’s Droopys Jet made just about all to land the Euro 20,000 final of the townviewfoods.com Champion Stakes final over 550 yards, beating Ballymac Vic in 29.46sec.
The Champion Plate final saw a comfortable success for the Owen McKenna-trained Camas, who capitalised on an ideal make-up to win from Barefoot Duke, while Razldazl Jayfkay had earlier regained the winning thread when just holding off last year’s Irish Derby finalist Rockchase Bullet.
*Farloe Tango, Charlie Lister’s exciting prospect who is on the way back having suffered a fall at Nottingham earlier in the month, clocked a very smart 30.03sec (-10) in a 500m solo at the Colwick Park track before racing on Saturday.
