Oh Captain; a star is born!

A new harness racing star was born, or perhaps proven, in the heats of the Victoria Derby at Melton on Saturday night (Oct. 1).

That was the ‘ravishing’ son of Captaintreacherous Captain Ravishing.

The three-year-old colt has set tongues wagging across Australasia since his win at Ballarat on September 9 where he unleashed a record final quarter of 25.1 seconds.

He then won his next start at Kilmore lowering the track record by 1.5 seconds.

Tonight (Oct. 1) he faced one of his toughest tests yet.

He had a second row draw to contend with; the cloud over the 2760m distance plus the fact he was meeting dual Derby champion Leap To Fame again.

However, Captain Ravishing rose above all to win the $24,000 qualifier after racing three-wide and outside the leader, Leap To Fame, with Mark Pitt at the reins.

And to add to the hype, the last two quarters were 26.8 and 26.6 seconds.

Pitt went on record to say: “He is the best horse I’ve driven, yes.

“He is a very special horse this one.

“I can’t wait for him to work it out and be a professional racehorse.

“There is still more improvement in him yet and he’ll be 100 per cent for next week.

“You can’t take anything away from Leap To Fame, he’s been there and done that.”

Captain Ravishing rated 1:58.3 while the other Victoria Derby heat was run in a mile rate of 1:55.7.

New Zealand pacer Major Perry (Art Major) won that qualifier by a narrow short margin over Ripp.

The Belinda McCarthy-trained Cantfindabettorman led and set a slick tempo early with race favourite Catch A Wave on his outside.

With the first two quarters posted in 28.8 and 28 seconds, the final two splits were clocked in 28 and 29.5.

Major Perry raced four pegs for the majority of the trip with driver Scott Phelan.

“It was good,” Phelan told TrotsVision.

“You come all over the way and if we qualified just behind them you’d leave happy, to get the win tops it off.

“With a bit of luck, and we got a little bit tonight, we managed to get on top of them.”

The barrier draw for the $200,000 Victoria Derby at Melton on October 8 will be completed on Monday.

For complete race results and race replays, click here.

by Amanda Rando, for Harnesslink