Tongues are wagging for Wag Star

Wag Star’s (Sweet Lou) stunning win on Friday night by fifteen lengths was certainly one of the highlights on a night of super harness racing at Addington.

Trained at Wyndham by Craig Ferguson, driver Mark Hurrell took the four year old to the front from a wide gate and despite being challenged by Bryce’s Meddle he was too good in the R61-R18 mobile pace.

“I didn’t expect him to do that going on his last workout run where he went to the front and tried pulling up and goofing around. He always does that without the blinds on. We keep the blind off (at workouts) because we don’t want to be running away and winning by big margins,” Ferguson said.

Wag Star’s winning time of 2-20.3 wasn’t far off South Coast Arden’s 2021 New Zealand record of 2-17.0.

“I wasn’t surprised. I’ve always had a high opinion of him and I guess he showed what I always thought he could do. He’s a good front runner because he’s a big free rolling horse with a high cruising speed who can sustain it. He does have a quick turn of foot so he’s versatile. When you think you’ve got the best horse in the race it’s probably easier being in front and doing your own thing.”

WAG STAR REPLAY

The gelding was bred by Bill McDowell and his wife Mary who share in the ownership of Wag Star with Bill and Pauline Bain of Roxburgh.

Mary comes from a family steeped in harness racing history. Her uncle was Ted Lowe.

The name Wag Star comes from Wag, Lowe’s good open class pacer of the 1970s. He was raced by Mary’s grandmother Annie Lowe and won fifteen races including the 1971 Hannon Memorial and the 1972 Canterbury Classic.

Wag Star has remained in Canterbury at Regan Todd’s barn and is likely to start at Addington in a standing start in two weeks.

“We may look at Kaikoura. He’s a clean gaited horse, a good beginner and in front on a track like that he’d be pretty hard to pick up. If he manages to get in a race that’ll get him enough ranking points to get into the Cup, we’ll go. But it’s not necessarily a major aim of ours just yet. We’d love to have him in there but that’s going to be next year’s aim.”

Ferguson also lined up by Da Vinci (Art Major) in the Canterbury Classic. He finished ninth, 7.3 lengths away from winner Tact McLeod.

“He probably wasn’t travelling as good as he needed to be around the last bend. There were a couple of opportunities there if he was travelling better but he just felt a wee bit flat. Once they straightened up he got going again and 50 metres off the line he was running up the back of them. He probably needs a bit more racing in that grade to get used of the tough style of it all.”

Meanwhile Ferguson’s good three year old filly Louies Girl (Lord Forbes) heads to Christchurch on Wednesday and will race in a heat of the Nevele R Three Year Old Fillies Series on Thursday.

“I was happy with her at Oamaru. It’s a hard track to pick them up on. They walked and sprinted the other day and all those fillies have high speed, but I felt she (Louies Girl) dashed home nicely. It was a good first up run and she’ll take good benefit from it.”

Ferguson has a couple of nice maidens in Always B Paulie (Always B Miki) and Saucy Delight, (Bettor’s Delight) both of whom are ready to commence their racing careers in the next few weeks.

“I really like him (Always B Paulie). He had a wee gallop behind the gate as the mobile left yesterday. Once we get his gear sorted he should be going pretty good when he goes to the races.”

Saucy Delight has also impressed at workouts and is likely to start his racing career on his home track on Thursday.

“He’s a nice horse. He had a gallop the other day and he’s a bit of a headstrong character at times. He’s been good since his workout and we’ll get a couple of hopple runs into him this week.”

For complete race results, click here.

by Bruce Stewart, for Harnesslink