Karalta cruising towards more success

Kayleb Williams commenced his harness racing driving career on December 5 on King Island, and he spent many meetings on the island plotting a plan to defeat Karalta Kruise who won six races from the seven meetings held on the tiny dot in Bass Strait.

Fast forward to Friday evening and Williams will be plotting a way for the Kent Rattray-prepared pacer to win when he lines up in the Lees Orchard Stakes, a standing start event in Launceston.

“Back home, I was trying to catch him up the home straight every week but couldn’t, so it’s good to be on the other end and have a sit behind him,” said Williams ahead of Friday’s assignment.

Williams was able to secure a drive on the winner of over $100,000 in stakes in a junior drivers race in Launceston on May 7, his only drive on the pacer.

Karalta Kruise has won seven races this season, including three wins out of his last five starts.

“He has been racing in good form, last time out in Devonport he copped a little bit of pressure early and was up a bit in grade,” said Williams

The Kent Rattray-trained pacer has drawn outside of the front row and has been able to lead in his last four standing start races, two of which have been from the outside of the front-row draw.

Williams has another two drives on the Launceston card, including the Seven Davis trained Major Davvin in race two, who was placed in Devonport on Sunday in the race won by Boulder City.

“He was good last week, he likes the speed on, and he is a tough horse and battles on quite nicely,”

Taurisi is the other drive on the card for the former King Islander, with trainer Heath Szczypka utilising Williams concision claim to get the rated 75 pacer into a rating 55 to 70 event.

“He has come back in grade, which should help him but he does have a tricky draw, he is a nice sit and sprint horse” Williams explained.

The young driver currently sits fourth on the states junior drivers premiership and is enjoying his time on mainland Tasmania working for the Todd Rattray stable.

Friday night’s Launceston card will be televised on Sky Racing 2 and TasracingTV from 17:16

By Duncan Dornauf for Tasracing