Slick oh so quick on debut at Romford

Maxine Locke: among the winners

  PICTURE: Steve Nash  

SLICK CITI lived up to his name in no uncertain fashion when running his rivals out of town in the second heat of the Coral On TV Maidens Trophy over 400m at Romford on Monday.

Exploiting the 'pinging' three-box to the full to make a rocket start, it was all one-way traffic after a matter of metres as Slick Citi simply outclassed his field to win by seven lengths from Cockney Pride in 23.82sec, on a track that was good but nowhere near as fast as Friday night.

The credability of the performance went up a notch as it was the UK debut of Keith Allsopp's May 08 son of Honcho Classic, who already has a 3.58sec split for C&D - on Monday he sprinted to a 3.60sec sectional.

Klondike Highway showed the benefit of superior track knowledge to rail off favourite Rio Tornado to take charge between the first two bends in heat one.

Maxine Locke's dog was asked no serious questions thereafter as he strolled home over two lengths clear of Danny Riordan's pup in 24.06sec.

There was a minor shock in an unclean third heat with Toms Pet getting the better of market leader Minor Tango, who held every chance after hitting the front down the back straight, by three parts of a length in 24.37sec.

Draw for Friday's final: 1 Minor Tango 2 Slick Citi 3 Klondike Highway 4 Toms Pet 5 Cockney Pride (m) 6 Rio Tornado (m)