Lead vital in 1200m dash

The connections of Jilliby Bandit are drawing on La Puddie’s opening heat win in harness racing’s All In One Property Mercury80 series, with their eight-year-old having to similarly overcome the extreme outside draw in Friday night’s second heat. Click here to view fields.

La Puddie made light work of his wide draw with a swift beginning after Greg Sugars had the son of Somebeachsomewhere poised to pounce, having sat parked outside Love Ina Chevy before putting the race beyond doubt with 400 metres to travel.

Glen Craven said Jilliby Bandit possessed sufficient speed off the gate to take up an all-important forward position over the 1200-metre dash.

“He has enough early speed to put himself into a position and then you can dictate the race from there,” Craven said. “He’s drawn where he is because he’s the tightest assessed horse in the race.”

Three starts ago Jilliby Bandit was a luckless eighth behind Supreme Dominator in the Decron Cranbourne Pacing Cup, when Craven said “he was all over the back of them with nowhere to go in the straight”.

A front running performance tomorrow night will remove those obstacles and Craven is hopeful it will have the reinsman on a path to progress a couple of places further than last year, when he finished third in the $50,000 final on Change The Print.

“We had to come from last, which was a tough ask over the short trip,” he said of the final won by Yorkshire, while subsequent Inter Dominion winner Boncel Benjamin notably finished fifth.

Tomorrow night the Andy Gath-trained Fynn Frost, a noted front runner, will be on an early charge forward as he looks to wrest the early lead off Ozzie Battler, who drops back in class from his recent assignment in the Vicbred Super Series final for four-year-old entires and geldings.

The $50,000 final will be staged at Tabcorp Park on Del-Re National A. G. Hunter Cup night on February 5 after further heats at Melton on January 21 and 29.

By John Dunne for HRV