Pinpoint planning was behind Canterbury mare Kiwi On Show’s sizzling 1:52.2 mile win at Wyndham yesterday.
The Robbie Holmes-trained and driven blueblood pacer enjoyed a perfect trip in the trail throughout a hectic race before using the passing lane to overhaul the leader, Better Go Fernco.
A hot and sunny Wyndham day improved not only the race time but also Kiwi On Show’s winning chances, Holmes said.
The mare suffers from equine asthma and each meeting’s environment affects her condition.
Detailed analysis by her co-owner, Hamish Scott, found that all her best runs had been in warm daytime conditions.
"The biggest advantage for her today is the fact that it is a hot day, because she suffers from equine asthma," Holmes said.
"That is why she is down here racing in the daytime rather than at home [in Canterbury] in the nighttime."
The condition requires monitoring but there is little that can be done to help it because effective drugs do not comply with withholding times for racing, Holmes said.
Kiwi On Show’s blistering race time took 1.8sec off the all-comers 1609m Wyndham track record, set in 2013 by Seasbreeze Star.
Kiwi On Show’s time is only 0.1 sec outside the 1:52.1 time her dam, Kiwi Ingenuity, set in her memorable 2009 Harness Jewels win.
Another track record fell in the next event on the Wyndham card when the Lindsay Veint-trained Steiger ran 2:57.2 in the 2400m standing-start race 9.
A good neighbourly gesture has led to more than 30 years of thrills for Te Houka breeder Ian Bennett.
Bennett enjoyed his latest success with his long list of standardbred winners when Two Ply won race 5 yesterday.
The Craig Laurenson-trained pacer was given a perfect run in the trail by driver Brad Williamson before peeling off to the outside and proving too tough for his rivals in the home straight.
The Craig Laurenson and Brad Williamson combination also took out race 10 with The Maroon Marauder. Bennett has more than 30 years’ association with Two Ply’s breed, which was initially developed by his former neighbour, Ossie Throp.
That connection can be linked to his doing a good neighbourly deed in the 1970s.
"I had been trying to get one off Ossie for years. We were next-door neighbours and he had sold his farm and he had nowhere to put his mares.
"So I said, ‘bring them over’."
Bennett was given Benrodden, who would go on to win nine races, in return.
It would take until the late 1990s for Bennett to buy into the breed and continue Throp’s line of horses.
He has done that and added three more generations to the line.
Two Ply is the latest progeny and took his record to three career wins yesterday.