Springvale Grace takes out Golden Maiden
Trainer Gavin Harris continued the blistering start to 2024 for his kennel with promising youngster Springvale Grace taking out the 2024 Gawler Golden Maiden final on Sunday.
A large crowd was oncourse on Sunday for GRSA’s Family Fun in the Sun promotion, which is an annual event encouraging families on course with kids entertainment, live music, food trucks and face painting.
One lucky kid was even able to take home a Nintendo Switch after winning a running race which was randomly drawn from the dozens of children in attendance on course.
On the racing side, the Golden Maiden was the feature event on the 12-race program and was an intriguing final after four heats were run last week.
After being well supported in betting last week, Springvale Grace had no luck in her heat but hit the line well to qualify for the final.
It was a different story this week for Springvale Grace, who showed plenty of early speed to get a nice run through on the rail around the first turn.
While the Bosko Stamenkovic trained Sebea led, it shifted wide down the back allowing a beautiful passage through for Springvale Grace who hugged the rail to win in 31.37.
The fast finishing Keep It Zipped finished second for Richard Pearce while Sebea hung on to finish in third place.
The Golden Maiden win continued an excellent run for Harris, with his kennel claiming the distance feature in the Festival of Fire series while also winning the recent John Gray series at Angle Park with Dashing Deb.
Also on the Sunday program, there was two heats of a grade 5/6 series over the 531m trip which will culminate in an Angle Park final this Thursday night.
The first heat was taken out by the Robyn Mackellar trained Unholy Reign who showed all her trademark early speed to open up a three-length lead down the back straight.
Unholy Reign got a bit weary late but was able to hold off the challenge late from Boom Boom Jinx and Long Haul to win in 31.05.
The second heat was taken out by the Michael Giniotis trained Springvale Dave who produced an excellent run from box eight.
Away well from the wide draw, Springvale Dave was able to cross down and find the rail and opening a winning break down the back straight before streaking away to win by two and a half lengths in 30.93 ahead of Mepunga Roz and Show Me Bucks.