Warhawk and Sky score but Denis goes faster
Taylors Sky: Won the opening heat of the Ladbrokes Laurels
PICTURE: STEVE NASHFARLOE WARHAWK, the ante-post favourite, was forced to work very hard but showed tremendous bravery to get off to a winning start in the competition when taking heat two of the Labrokes Laurels over 470m at Belle Vue.
Outsider His Own Business raced clear early while Farloe Warhawk, only modestly away, paced up to the bend and, despite moving middle and into traffic from trap one, was able to turn second.
Barrie Draper’s dog still had ground to make up going into the penultimate turn, but His Own Business began to falter and Farloe Warhawk got up right on the line for a short-head victory in recording 28.33sec with Longwood Fantasy staying on powerfully to qualify in third.
There was a double for Charlie Lister in heats one and three courtesy of Taylors Sky and Boher Chieftain respectively.
Taylors Sky once again showed how much his running style has changed this year with a powerful staying performance as he ran down long-time leader Fridays Daryl off the final bend and forged clear for a near three lengths victory in recording 28.19sec. Interestingly, he pulled further and further away to the pick-up.
Boher Chieftain, contrastingly, raced clear early but was all out late on and had to dig deep to hold off the eye-catching Vatican Hermes and Milestone Apache by a head and the same in 28.43sec.
However, performance of the night, on the clock at least, came from Stuart Buckland’s Ballymac Denis in heat four as he reversed Northern Flat final form with Alien Planet by getting first run on that rival and scoring by one and a half lengths in 28.16sec.
**The draw for next Thursday’s semis will be made at the GBGB on Friday morning.
**Elsewhere, Dave Allen’s Fernhill Jess recorded her 17th open win of the year, joint best with Ayamzaman, when scoring at Henlow.
**SITTINGBOURNE will be taking an eleven point lead to Crayford on Thursday November 15 after winning their home leg of the Bags Track Championship on Thursday night.
The hosts won three of the six legs through John Coleman's Special Release, Tony Taylor's Daras Delight and Dave Puddy's Platinum Sparrow while Hove fought back with a Seamus Cahill double through Seals Babe and Locnamon Brian. Crayford, despite winning the stayers' leg with Barry O'Sullivan's Jims Journey, were disappointing.
Final score: Sittingbourne 74, Hove 63, Crayford 31.
