Ravers Army Ready To Roll In EASTAR
A top night of racing awaits at Angle Park this Thursday night, with the 2023 EASTAR Match Races the headline act on a big program.
The series, which continues to grow in excitement each year, will see eight of South Australia’s fastest chasers line up against each other in four match races, with the winner of the race being the chaser that runs the fastest time across the four match races.
Last year's edition was fantastic and it appears as if it will be no different this year, with four really even match races lined up.
One of the favourites to win the series overall will be the Tim Aloisi trained Ravers Army, who has been simply sensational over the last two month period. Off the back of two strong victories at his last two starts at Angle Park, he will prove to be an intimidating opponent for the Gavin Harris trained Springvale Max, when they meet in their match races.
Ravers Army has shown some brilliant strength and field sense in his last two victories, which have seen him come from near impossible positions early to finding a way and winning impressively. He’s likely to be led by Springvale Max early, which is something that Aloisi concedes may be a problem.
“Awesome, been pretty happy with them (his last two starts). He doesn’t usually suit 500m racing in full fields, so for him to jump last and navigate through a field and to still find trouble but keep coming, it’s definitely showing that the dog has matured a lot since coming to Adelaide.” said Aloisi
“He’d been up and obviously I dropped him right back for the Murray Bridge Cup, which I didn’t even think he would make but he did, so I just thought, well I don’t like throwing them back over 600m, so I just freshened him up for the last month with this in mind. I just had to make sure he qualified for it, that's all.”
“It didn’t worry me where he drew, I think it will be a pretty tough match race, on the bunny Springvale Max can run along so Ravers will have to be at his best to catch him. I probably see Max leading and Ravers trying to run him down.”
“If Ravers Army gets a clear run and if he went untouched, I think he could run 30.20, depending on the track and if he could run something like that then it would be pretty competitive.”
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The other feature race of the night will be the EASTER Cup Final over the 595m distance. Two heats were staged last week with Machismo and Yarramundi Paul winning their respective heats, both of which are trained by Vadim Roz.
Since going to New South Wales back in January, for a crack at the National Derby, both chasers have been in great form here, seemingly showing a bit of maturity in their racing.
It won’t be easy on Thursday night, with Yarramundi Paul drawing box five and Machismo box seven, which means they will need to jump well, being from the corner start.
“Very good run from him in his heat (Yarramundi Paul), my concern was that Victa Reid in box one who wanted to the box eight area, Paul got a little bit jammed up early and I thought that if he could just ride the bump and get to his spot, I was confident he would do well so I thought his run was really good.” said Roz
“Machismo was racing for luck and needed to find the run on the rail at some stage, he got behind a nice speed dog and just finished off. He’s pretty strong, their is nothing between (Yarramundi) Paul and Machismo but the difference is the first section, it’s the only thing that separates them. His run was good, it was a hard field, a lot of class runners.”
“I think it’s almost mathematically impossible to draw the two same boxes for the two same dogs for a heat and final! Paul has got five and he doesn’t mind a middle draw. Having Victa Reid to his right assists him a little bit, my only concern is that the four dogs to his left, he’s just got to negotiate a bit of traffic. Hopefully they spread out so he can slot himself in. He just needs some cover with no trouble early and he should be right in the race.”
“Machismo is once again racing for luck, if they jam up early he will be in the right spot at the right time to make a run, but his best chance would be to finish in the top three.”
“I would stick with Yarramundi Paul, he’s an ultra consistent dog, he just needs a little bit of luck in the run and he’s my best prospect for the race.”
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An intriguing staying race over the 730m distance awaits on Thursday also, with the Cameron Forshaw and Ashlee Griffiths trained duo of Zipping Patch and Zipping Senorita set to bring sibling rivalry together, when they meet as likely favourites for the race.
Zipping Patch has shown how good he is for a period of time now, however Zipping Senorita has been in fantastic form her last two starts.
It was only last start that she put up an enormous performance, to run down Beck’s Monelli somewhat effortlessly, despite receiving no luck in the early stages of the race. She still ran a fantastic time of 43.28, which followed on from her 43.07 victory the week prior.
Zipping Senorita will exit box one for the event, with Zipping Patch drawn outside, something which is a slight concern for co-trainer Ashele Griffiths.
“Her form has definitely surprised us, she is starting to get her confidence up and is getting better at running in a field.” said Griffiths
“I’d rather her out wide and not drawn on the inside of (Zipping) Patch, because she will be pushing out on the first turn, so hopefully they will miss each other.”
“I think she will be able to break ‘43’, she’s getting better every run and she’s not even two and years old yet, so she still has so much improvement left.
Best Bet: Agent Nine Nine (Race 12, Number 3)
Value Bet: Discrepancy (Race 11, Number 4)