By Michael Guerin
It was the night of the “we didn’t know what to expect” horses at Addington on Friday night.
Not that anybody doubted the ability of Alta Meteor, Got The Chocolates, Oscar Bonavena or even earlier winner Treacherous Baby going into Friday night’s massive 13-race card.
It was just that all of them had at least some of questions hanging over their heads.
They answered those questions with sheer class.
In the case of Alta Meteor in the Avon City Ford New Brighton Cup it also helped he has great standing start manners and driver Tim Williams was able to control the race.
That was enough to answer the questions about whether he could be right up to the mark after a respiratory infection since his last race, with his natural athletic ability doing the rest as key rivals Akuta and We Walk By Faith got too far back.
“We were coming here wondering just how he would go after that setback,” admitted co-trainer Amanda Telfer.
“But he is in the Cup (NZ) now and we can place him where we want to get him ready for that.”
We Walk By Faith was excellent in second while Franco Marek and Renegade were too but Akuta blew out late as trainer-driver Mark Purdon warned punters he might.
All in all, a good next step toward the spring for the first five home.
Got The Chocolates had his questions marks heading into the Ian Dobson Memorial as John Dunn didn’t want to keep putting him to the sword and that had speed mappers thinking the heavily-backed Rubura and Bar Louie would control the race.
They did. It didn’t matter.
After they has sorted themselves out early Got The Chocolates was left parked but he simply outstayed the Queensland Derby winner in a stunning win, surging further clear the closer they got to the line.
If it wasn’t for Marketplace then Got The Chocolates would be in for a stunningly exciting summer. As it is the question now becomes can he finally snare a big one? I kinda hope so.
There are always questions marks over Oscar Bonavena these days.
Will he behave? Is he 100 per cent? Is he is too old? Does he even care?
But once he stepped better than key rival Muscle Mountain and inside 800m worked his way into the one-one this $40,000 ITM Ordeal Cup was his to lose.
His rivals all gave each other a hard time and Oscar was sitting back laughing and wondering when to open the hurt locker.
When he did it hurt bad as he smashed his rivals and now remarkably finds himself as favourite again for the Renwick Farms Dominion on Cup Day.
If he wins the Dominion again they should name the Addington stabling block after Oscar.
Ok, that might be a step too far. But they should name a stall or two after him for oddball, old, wonderful trotters who can do magic tricks like the one Oscar keeps pulling off.
By the way, did you know Oscar Bonavena is named after the profesional boxer Oscar “Ringo” Bonavena, who had 58 career victories.
Oscar the horse now has 35.
Treacherous Baby was the other former Group 1 winner returning to Addington with a win on Friday night and she beat some very smart boys even though trainer-driver Purdon was concerned she had missed some work after her last start win.
Again her beautiful trip in the running meant that mattered less and she won like the very good mare she is turning into.
The other winners had plenty of class about them, like Lizzie Borden in the opener and Stumblin In in the juvenile pace while Celestial Sea was superb in her Nevele R heat to head home another good night for Team Dunn – John Dunn having four winning drives on the night.