Lady Vici’s first up win a sign of things to come

The lightly raced and injury prone Lady Vici (Orlando Vici) having her first harness racing start for over 15 months defied all expectations with a narrow but gritty win in the Aldebaran Park Trot at Melton on Saturday evening.

Although she was resuming from a long spell, Lady Vici had trialled well enough at Melton two weeks back to suggest she would run a forward race first up and was installed favourite.

The well performed Alrighty showed speed from the pole and easily held the lead. James Herbertson on Lady Vici found a one out and two back trail. However Alrighty looked to be travelling well within himself and Lady Vici seemed to be making heavy weather of trying to catch the runaway leader.

But at the business end of the race, Lady Vici stamped her authority like a good horse and prevailed by over a head from Alrighty with Maori Mac coming from well back to take back.

LADY VICI JUL 26 REPLAY

Bred by Yabby Farms, Lady Vici is trained and raced by Joe Vassalo who is based at Toolern Vale and is well remembered for his former star filly I Am Pegasus.

And he has shown great patience with Lady Vici who has now five wins from six starts. She is now a five year old and has missed all of the Vic Bred series but other races will come her way.

Driver James Herbertson was suitably impressed.

“She warmed up pretty strongly and she hasn’t got the strongest mouth going around”.

“Even when the first 100 metres went with the green light she grabbed the chew and got pretty strong again and got a little bit rough she didn’t like me grabbing hold of her too much”.

“We were able to sneak into the running line lucky enough and to her credit she knuckled down to that last 100 metres and found the line in time. Luckily she knows how to win”.

“I wasn’t super confident but I knew she’d find something when I asked her. I hadn’t asked too much of her. When I asked her there was a bit more there and that’s the sign of a pretty nice horse”.

“Joe has worked out those problems she has had from the start. She was really good away tonight”.

“There’s no worries there. She’s just got to learn to come back underneath you a little bit and learn to be a racehorse now. She’s getting up in class they’re going to roll along a bit. She’ll hold her own she can go as far as she wants to but at this point in time you can’t ask much more after a year off”.

The win capped off a great night for Herbertson with three winners to his name and he certainly seems to have the midas touch when it comes to driving.

For complete race results, click here.

By Tony Milanese for Harnesslink