Mowbray bags a double at Timaru

Consistent harness racing performers Mighty Reactor (Auckland Reactor) and Fourth Amendment (American Ideal) made full use of their opportunities when winning at Timaru on Sunday.

Trainer Brad Mowbray produced a winning double with the pair with Fourth Amendment scoring in amateur drivers company and Mighty Reactor taking out race 7.

Mighty Reactor ran to his eighth career win when making full use of a perfect trip in the trail driver Matthew Williamson secured him.

After showing talent throughout his career and racing much tougher fields, the six-year-old was always going to be tough to beat when coming off such a sweet trip.

“It really suits him when there’s a decent speed on like there was today,” Mowbray said.

“It was great that he could get a trip like that and a bit of luck because he doesn’t always get much luck.”

MIGHTY REACTOR REPLAY

Mighty Reactor is an 86-start veteran who debuted for the Mowbray stable in 2019.

With $81,000 in the bank and sixteen placings to go alongside his six wins, the pacer has been a consistent performer over the past four years.

Mighty Reactor has shown himself to be a little quirky on the racetrack and he also shown his share of quirks around the Mowbray stable.

“He has been very consistent and he’s done a great job for us,” Mowbray said.

“He won one of those Ratto races last year, too.”

“He can be a bit headstrong but he is an easy enough horse to have around the place.”

“We do a lot of galloping work with him because he’s not that great of a pacer.”

“That’s why it suits him when they do go along at a good speed.”

Fourth Amendment also made full use of the good trip he got into race 1 to score for driver Mike Maynard.

Maynard hasn’t been seen in amateur races on too many occasions over the past few seasons, but the reinsman showed he has still got his share of skill when landing Fourth Amendment a sweet cart up before the home turn.

The pacer capitalised when scoring Maynard’s first victory since 2016.

“Mike used to come out to the stables three times a week but since we moved out to Leeston it’s been once a week,” Mowbray said.

“Life goes on and you get busy and that sort of thing.”

“But it was great to see Mike get the job done.”

“He’s an honest horse and he was well placed in that race, he had been chasing home Bri Express and Seabreeze Solitaire in his last few starts.”

Sunday’s feature was taken out by Artatac who ran to back-to-back victories in the Timaru Winter Cup.

The pacer produced a gritty effort when sitting parked for the last lap to score for trainer Mark Jones and driver Gemma Thornley.

For complete race results, click here.

by Jonny Turner, for Harness Racing New Zealand