SA Chasers on show in Group Race finals
A big night awaits on Thursday, with South Australian chasers Bedrock Fred and Stout Monelli, both lining up in Group final races interstate. It’s always fantastic to see the best South Australian dogs head interstate and match it with the country’s best, and both of the dogs will line up as favourite in their respective races.
Bedrock Fred will be the first of the two to hit the track, taking on the Group 1 Queensland Cup over the 710m trip at Albion Park. The recent form of Bedrock Fred has been quite simply sensational and he has been proving totally unstoppable since joining the care of Tony Brett. He has won three in a row at Albion Park, all in brilliant fashion, and will now be looking to cap off the preparation with his first Group 1 success. He has finally drawn a good box in a feature final, with box #1, bringing a smile to both Cherylee and Stewart Barber. Goodluck to Fred and hopefully he can have a clear crack so he can show the country how good he is!
The other South Australian on show is Stout Monelli, who will be coming out of box #3 in the Group 2 Mckenna Memorial over 595m, at Sandown Park. After winning his heat last week impressively, he will be looking to repeat the dose in the $40,000 final. His part owner/trainer Tim Aloisi is pleased with the way the box draw has worked out.
“The draw is good. We were hoping to get as close to the rails as we could and I was hoping there wasn’t much speed or a lot of pace in the final, and their probably isn’t, so he’s got a good chance of leading. When he leads, he is pretty hard to run down.” said Tim
Stout Monelli joined the kennel of Dave Geall just a few weeks after the SA Anniversary Cup back in April.
“In the Anniversary Cup he ripped a toenail out, so he had a 2-3 weeks off then sent him up to Melbourne then.”
“He went there and he was probably a certainty beat in the Meadows race, he moved up on the leaders and hit the rail, then ran up the back of a dog, so he was pretty unlucky.”
The McKenna Memorial wasn’t quite the plan, however a lightning trial without the blinkers meant a change of plans for Stout Monelli.
“He did a stewards trial at Geelong and we took the blinkers off, he went 25.68 which is quite good. The plan was we were going to take him back to the Meadows over 600 on the Saturday, but after that trial Dave rang and said it’s a pretty hot trial, we’ll just put him in blind at Sandown.”
“It was his first look and first 600 (in a while) last week. Dave said he was definitely a run short so we were just hoping to make the final.
Goodluck to all involved with Bedrock Fred and Stout Monelli, it will be fantastic to see both the chasers knock off the finals. Bedrock Fred will run at 7:28pm SA time, whilst Stout Monelli will run at 8:11pm.
