Cup Night treble for Lee

Jason Lee took the harness racing driving honours on Bendigo Cup night with a winning treble.

Lee’s successful night was launched by the Captaintreacherous five-year-old Jillibyjacksparrow who was sent out a well backed $2.70 favorite in the Alabar Bloodstock Pace.

Jillibyjacksparrow easily crossed to the pegs from his mid-front row draw and Lee was able to back off the tempo in a leisurely :62.8 first half of the last mile before reeling off a :55.1 last 800 metres holding off Rosarito Miss and Sly Terror.

Lee admitted the race panned out perfectly for his charge.

“Finding the front tonight has been ideal and the track is so quick, especially when we got our first lap like that,” Lee said.

“We burnt up a few tickets early but then we got a good breather, and this bloke is in a real purple patch at the moment,” he said.

Lee repeated the dose later in the night when he steered Jilliby Willow to an all the way win in the J&A Mazzetti Painting Mares Pace.

Jilliby Willow speared across to wrest the lead off Interpretation shortly after the start and was afforded a 31.2 second quarter ‘breather’ before comfortably accounting for her rivals in the run to the line.

Lee admitted he was egged on by the crowd at the start of the race.

“I probably wasn’t initially planning on lighting her up but a few of the boys in the crowd yelled out that I couldn’t lead from (barrier) seven, so it probably gave me a rush of blood,” he said.

“We’ve been teaching her to be a racehorse but once she was wanting to go a little behind the gate, I gave her a flick on the bum and she’s quick off the arm.

“She has come a long way and she’s got good ability,” Lee added.

Lee completed a hat trick with his third all the way win of the evening aboard the Kelvin Barker prepared trotter Mercenary in the World’s Best Hoof Oil Trot.

Sent out a $15 chance, Mercenary had many of his rivals off the bit and chasing after sliding down the back straight in a slick 27.9 third quarter before cruising to the winning post with an eight-metre advantage over I Dream Of Millie.

Lee said the Barker stable expected the five-year old to fare better than the betting suggested.

“The confidence around the horse was pretty strong,” he said.

“I hadn’t driven him for a little while, but they told me to get him up amongst it early, so we drove him a bit more positively and once we got that easy first quarter then we were going to be hard to catch.”

by John Dunne, for Harnesslink