Sure Thing Captain salutes for Queensland

Local pacer Sure Thing Captain (Captaintreacherous) drew first blood when he took out the first harness racing Heat of the Ladbrokes Inter Dominion Pacing championship at Albion Park on Saturday evening.

In what was regarded as the most open of the three heats being run, Adam Sanderson took the early initiative to take up the early running from barrier 4 with James Herbertson on favourite Rakero Rebel taking the trail.

In taking the early lead Sanderson clearly won the battle of tactics as Always Smokin was the only runner to run up alongside the leader with over a lap to travel.

Sure Thing Captain always looked comfortable in the lead and in running his last two quarters in 26.6 and 26.5 seconds gave his rivals virtually no chance of catching him.

Although Sure Thing Captain ran out a comfortable winner, there was little doubt that the best run outside the winner was Catch A Wave who came near the rear of the field to storm home for second with Rakero Rebel third ahead of her stable mate Better Eclipse.

SURE THING CAPTAIN JULY 5 REPLAY

It’s been a welcome return to form for Catch A Wave who had an unsuccessful recent trip to West Australia but he’s a big time race performer and he can only improve during the series especially if he draws on the front row.

Sure Thing Captain is trained by Shannon Price who is based at Alberton on the Gold Coast. She also had Speak The Truth engaged but he was held up for a run and could only finish ninth.

Both Rakero Rebel and Better Eclipse ran honest races but they’ll need to improve over the series to match it with the likes of Leap To Fame and Don Hugo.

For complete race results, click here.

By Tony Milanese for Harnesslink