Rave on Rabbits kicks off in style

Bigga’s Dennis Picker kicked off Orange Harness Racing Club’s first meeting of the 2018 season in style on Sunday afternoon, steering an early double in the first two races on Towac Park’s grass track.

He piloted Herbs Hero ($1.80) to victory in the first before edging home in a mile rate of 2:00.02 on board $2.30 favourite Rave On Rabbits in the second, the ILB Steel Heat 1 (1609 metres).

It was one of three of the afternoon’s first set of Carnival of Cups heats, with another three contested later that afternoon, and gives Picker a look-in for the $14,000 final at Towac Park in a fortnight.

Picker’s second win wasn’t an easy one, far from it, he edged home by a half-head from the Josh Turnbull-trained Lucky Lyla ($5.50).

However, coming up Towac Park’s 300-metre straight the Mat Rue-driven Captains Call ($3.10) was absolutely flying home before he and Rave On Rabbits made contact, the latter recovered to claim the win while the latter finished third.

“I thought [both winners] were chances, it was good, something a bit different out here racing on the grass, I’d only done it here last year and it’s good that Orange is still getting some harness racing,” Picker said.

“[Rave On Rabbits] just wanted to duck out pretty badly in the straight, twice. He’s always been a bit of a funny horse like that and he caught me a bit unawares, but he knuckled down to the task at hand and got there in the end.”

The four-year-old was resuming from a seven-month spell after picking up a win last start in June 2017, and came into Sunday’s meet after a strong trial win earlier this month – both those runs were at Bathurst.

“He had quite a big spell and he was actually quite a handy two-year-old, he won a heat at the Gold Crown,” Picker said.

“We did have a few problems with him last season but this time around I’ve been really happy with the way he’s worked up.

“We just had the one trial before [Sunday] and he won it nicely at Bathurst about three weeks ago, so I was reasonably confident coming into this meet.”

Picker, the poll marker, and his gelding led from beginning to end after kicking away beautifully from the mobile start, and wasn’t really troubled until early in the straight.

That’s when Lucky Lyla, which sat behind the leader from the word go, getting an inside opening and finding a run to push up to test the eventual winner.

It looked a race of two until the 250-mark, when Captains Call started his run.

He actually looked all but guaranteed to fly past Rave On Rabbits and Lucky Lyla on the outside until the contact, a big setback for the Stephen Conroy-trained gelding.

Rave On Rabbits held to edge past Lucky Lyla in a photo.

Matt Findlay

Reprinted with permission of The Western Advocate