Rocket City back to winning form

Highly talented pacer Rocket City (Huntsville) stamped himself as an above average performer when he led all the way to take out the Band 4 Pace at Albion Park on Saturday evening.

Prior to last night, Rocket City had chased home Attachment a week ago at Albion Park after racing outside the leader and had been racing in harder company.

Rocket City was easily the best away and driver Layne Dwyer settled in front of the field setting a leisurely pace.

Birkirkara was resuming since his last start ninth in the Rising Sun over two months ago and he was considered to be the only danger.

But he showed little dash early and driver Nathan Dawson didn’t come off the fence when the field started to pack up. However he did get clear near the final bend but Rocket City was travelling too well and he had plenty in reserve to defeat Birkirkara by over ten metres with the well raced Luvbite in third placing. Rocket City scorched through his last two quarters in 26.8 and 26.4 seconds.

ROCKET CITY SEP 20 REPLAY

Birkirkara will be improved by that run and is sure to run a better race next time.

It was a tough decision for driver Layne Dwyer. Luvbite is his favourite horse, but when he was offered the chance to drive Rocket City, he knew it was a great opportunity

Layne landed a pickup drive earlier in the week where Hot And Treacherous broke the 2138 standing start track record.

Rocket City is raced by Eddie Burchill and father/son team Doug and Ryan Spice. When they purchased him from Western Australia, they were confident that trainer Donny Smith would be the right fit.

Connections of Rocket City have been receiving some strong interest from North America. As the gelding is now effectively in free for all grade in Queensland there is a bit to weigh up.

The winner completed a huge night for trainer Donny Smith as it was his first training treble. Earlier he was successful with Watchmedazzle (Hes Watching) and then later on his smart mare La Derniere (Hurrikane Kingcole) led all the way in the mares event.

Similarly driver Layne Dwyer had more success completing a double when he steered Golden Fire (The Gold Ace) to a last gasp win in a mares pace.

By Tony Milanese for Harnesslink