Senses looks the goods

When you are member of one of the most decorated harness racing pacing families, the expectations are high and the latest such example is the two year old filly Senses (American Ideal) who made it two on end winning the Penrith Mazda Pace at the Penrith Showgrounds on Thursday evening.

Senses is out of Lettucereason dam of two of currently Australia’s leading pacers in Leap To Fame and Swayzee. And the manner of Senses’s wins show that the filly is headed for better success.

At Penrith Senses was on the inside of the second row and driver Will Rixon was in no hurry early allowing the filly to come one off the rails and settle at the rear of the field.

Rixon timed his run going into the back straight and Senses responded with a quick burst to draw level with the other two year old Inside Magic. Despite having a tendency to race greenly and hanging in Senses quickly gained the upper hand and she drew clear to easily beat Ima Sweet Torque by seventeen metres with Arma The Great a further eight metres away in third.

SENSES AUG 14 REPLAY

Senses recorded an impressive mile rate of 1.56.4 and running her last quarter in 28.4 seconds.

Trained by David Thorn who is a renowned conditioner of pacers, Senses is raced by Mitch Lenaghan and Stuart Doughty who purchased the filly from breeder Justin Kahlefeldt.

Trainer David Thorn who is renowned with young pacers commented

“We think she’s pretty good. It was a bit of a risk running her around Penrith as she’s always been at Menangle. She’s very quick. We haven’t driven her yet for toughness but I think she’s quite strong. If you look at the breed toughness stands out with Leapt to Fame, Swayzee and even Maximus Red”.

Co owner Stuart Doughty is relatively new in harness racing having been in the thoroughbred game and he is right into breeding. With Mitch Lenaghan who has been a long standing client of Thorn’s they were looking for a good broodmare.

Thorn added “We looked at her 18 months ago at Paul Kahlefeldt’s place at Wagga. She was a plain small filly nothing special but we knew she was quality bred”.

“She reminds me of Anntonia (Thorn’s former outstanding filly) in her characteristics and both have great speed”.

Even at just her second start it didn’t concern Thorn to race her against older company. “We knew she’d be racing in the lower 48 rank and that she would be too speedy for them”. “This is her third prep back. She’s a nice filly very good with people”.

Driver Will Rixon added to the complements.

“She’s got a lot of high speed and is very exciting. We haven’t got to best of her yet. She hung for virtually the whole way but was still too good”.

“She’ll get better with experience”.

Harness racing patrons are likely to see Senses next in action for the forthcoming New South Wales Breeders Challenge series for fillies.

“She’ll have a few easy days and then maybe have one more start before the Challenge”. “But if she doesn’t come back as we expect we’ll turn her out as she’s too valuable as a future broodmare to take chances with”.

Everyone will be hoping that Thorn and Rixon can keep Senses going at the track as appropriate as any future appearances will be eagerly followed by those in the industry.

For complete race results, click here.