Stewart bags a $200,000 Derby trifecta

Top harness racing trainer Emma Stewart has carried all before her in Victoria this year with a string of major wins.

Yet even Stewart could not have expected to come to Sydney and bag the trifecta in one of Sydney's biggest plums, the APG New South Wales Derby.

Aided by a masterly drive by Chris 'The Puppet' Alford, the Derby went to Victorian Derby runner-up Poster Boy, who raced with a one-one trail for most of the 2300m journey before Alford expertly extricated him from a pocket turning for home and made a flashing run to take the Derby by one and a half-metres from surprise packet Tam Major (Todd McCarthy) with the other stablemate, Major Times (Mark Pitt) a half neck back in third place.

Vic Derby winner Colt Thirty One was sent out a short-priced favourite for Grant Dixon after drawing gate one and the race looked his for the taking when he led easily and was able to get away with a 30.9 first quarter and a 29.6 second split in the final mile.

But he never got much peace in front and was eyeballed by Maraetai for much of the final lap.

Enter Poster Boy and Alford later admitted the last half lap hadn't quite worked out how he had planed it to.

"Thankfully he was good enough to cover them when he got clear," said the champion reinsman.

With a last half of 53 seconds (splits of 26.7 and 26.3s), Poster Boy made up for his narrow defeat in the Victorian equivalent with a one and a half metre victory in 1:56.7 mile rate.

Stewart admitted eh loves coming to Sydney and would be back whenever there were feature races on.

"We're big supporters of APG and buy a lot of our horses there so it is fitting they should sponsor a race like this."

Poster Boy

Video coming

 

5	8:20pm	APG NSW DERBY (GROUP 1)	2400M
		$200,000 3YO Colts and Geldings. RBD. Mobile	Final Results

Pl	Horse	Prize- money		Row & Br	TAB #	Trainer	Driver (C = Concession)	Mgn (m)	Starting odds	Stewards' Comments
1	POSTER BOY	$120,000		Fr3	4	Emma Stewart	Chris Alford		$ 3.50
	BAY COLT 3 by SOMEBEACHSOMEWHERE USA out of ASTON VILLA USA (ARTSPLACE (US))  Owner(s): Lauriston Bloodstock Pty Ltd  Breeder(s): Lauriston Bloodstock Pty Ltd
2	TAM MAJOR	$ 30,000		Fr8	10	Emma Stewart	Todd McCarthy	1.50	$ 149.30
3	MAJOR TIMES	$ 20,000		Fr2	2	Emma Stewart	Mark Pitt	2.20	$ 12.50
4	THE BLACK PRINCE NZ	$ 10,000		Fr6	8	Roy Roots Jnr	Chris Geary	2.90	$ 41.80
5	COLT THIRTY ONE	$ 5,000		Fr1	1	Grant Dixon	Grant Dixon	3.10	$ 2.60 fav
6	LITTLE PEANUT	$ 3,000		Fr10	12	Jess Tubbs	Greg Sugars	7.50	$ 19.60
7	CODE BAILEY NZ	$ 3,000		Fr7	9	Margaret Lee	Glen Craven	9.70	$ 50.40
8	THE DEVILS OWN NZ	$ 3,000		Fr9	11	Mark Purdon	Natalie Rasmussen	13.40	$ 18.50
9	MARAETAI	$ 3,000		Fr4	5	Emma Stewart	Luke McCarthy	14.10	$ 3.90
10	HIGHERTHANANEAGLE	$ 3,000		Fr5	6	David Aiken	Darren Hancock	14.30	$ 39.20	(L)

Scratchings
DIVINE STATE	3
ALL U NEED IS FAITH NZ	7

Track Rating: GOOD	Gross Time: 2:54:0	Mile Rate: 1:56:7	Lead Time: 60.5
First Quarter: 30.9	Second Quarter: 29.6	Third Quarter: 26.7	Fourth Quarter: 26.3
Margins: 1.5m x HFNK

Sean Vella