Fantastic Dixie Eyeing Off Murray Bridge Cup Glory

The biggest race held at Murray Bridge for the year will be run this Sunday night with the Group 3 Murray Bridge Cup set to take place at 8:07pm local time. Every year it brings a terrific field together and is always hotly contested, with this year set to be no different, as trainers and chasers set their eyes on the $26,000 first prize.

Six heats were run last Sunday night, with the locals making the most of a lack of interstate representation, with seven South Australian trained chasers making their way through to the final, along with the Matthew Laningan runner Tom Keeping.

The box draw has fallen the way of the favourites, with the three quickest qualifiers in Ravers Army, Fantastic Dixie and Tom Keeping all set to get their chances from low draws. The trio were clearly the quickest three qualifiers and will no doubt be making their presence felt in the final.

Fantastic Dixie will be looking to cap off one of the more stunning returns to racing that you are likely to see, with the brindle bitch nearly losing her life back in September, when a mystery illness struck her down and was forced to spend two weeks in a veterinary clinic. Since returning in February, she has had four starts and won two of them, both in best of the night times.

In her heat win last week, she showed that she is back to her very best. She drew box one and only fairly away, but stayed on the rails and kept making ground. After barging her way through to the lead on the turn, she proved a totally different class to her rivals as she stormed away by six lengths in 25.42. That win and her form since returning has unsurprisingly been pleasing for her co-trainer Oswald Chegia.

“Her form has been pretty good, as you know she nearly died, so she’s been doing real good and going along quite nice.” said Chegia

“Sometimes she does that (misses the start), she’s a bit tardy early, but she picks them up really quickly. I don’t know about the final, it’s going to be quite hard of course.”

With Fantastic Dixie drawing box three in the final, surrounded by her two main rivals in the market with Ravers Army in box one and Tom Keeping in box four, she will be looking to jump better this week, to make sure she isn’t facing a wall of chasers heading into the turn. Given her strength late, if she is close then she is going to be awfully dangerous in the home straight.

“I think she’s drawn okay in there, not too far out. There are a couple of other good dogs in the race, the one and the four are pretty good.” Chegia said

Fantastic Dixie will also have a kennel mate in the form of Fantastic Keary going around in the final, following his fast second placing behind Sandave Diamond in his heat. He has drawn poorly in box five and whilst he might be an outsider in the race, he is still there and will certainly run well.

“He will probably miss the kick too, but he will probably get into a bit of trouble from the middle. There's a bit of pace around him so I doubt whether he will be out near the lead.” said Chegia

Some other highlights on the monster card Sunday night include two straight track finals as well as three other ‘special events’ over the remaining three distances at the track, that being the 395m, 530m and 680m starts. Along with this we will also have the John O’Neill Cup Consolation over the 455m trip, which is quite strong.

It will be a terrific night at Murray Bridge with a big crowd expected to attend and good weather in store. The racing will start at 5:52pm and the last race at 9:33pm.