Petracca draws first blood in Derby Heat

There were few surprises in the first heat of the Victoria Derby with the long odds on favorite Petracca (Captaintreacherous) ($1.08 fav) cruising to the line ahead of his harness racing rivals. 

PETRACCA IS ALL CLASS!
Driven by Mark Pitt and trained by Emma Stewart, Petracca has shown he is the real deal after a dominant display in heat one of the Woodlands Stud Victoria Derby. pic.twitter.com/yL4jYnjIYs

— The Trots (@TheTrotsComAu) October 7, 2023

The Emma Stewart trained three-year-old wasn’t gifted the front running with Jackie Barker on Final Collect extending the favorite before surrendering the lead with 1600 metres to travel and Mark Pitt on Petracca proceeded to drop the anchor. 

Pitt admitted securing the lead was a slightly tougher task than he’d imagined. 

“I thought that they may have wanted to take a trail on him but look they didn’t and I thought the best way for me was being in front,” Pitt said.  

“I didn’t want to get involved in an early burn so I just elected to roll forward and then press on from there,” he said. 

Pitt defended his decision to slow the mid-race tempo with a 64.6 first half of the last mile. 

“I didn’t want to kill him either leading into next week which is his grand final, so I thought I’d give him an easy trip tonight and he’ll be cherry ripe for next week,” he said. 

For complete race results, click here.

by John Dunne, for Harnesslink