Judge unable to split them in Hilarious Guest

With a guaranteed start in New Zealand harness racing’s premiere 3YO fillies classic, the G1 $225,000 Pacing Oaks up for grabs, the stars came from far and wide to contest tonight’s $25,000 Hilarious Guest 3YO Fillies Classic at Addington Raceway.

The Barry Purdon and Scott Phelan trained dual G1 winner Duchess Megxit (Sweet Lou) has been on an absolute tear of the 3YO filly division since ending her Autumn campaign with a third consecutive victory in the G1 Magness Benrow Sires Stakes Fillies Championship on her home track at Alexandra Park.

She was installed as a $1.50 (F/O) favourite on the back of her making it five wins on the bounce with two wins on end since her resumption on the 13th of September.

Despite drawing the widest gate on the front line (9) for tonight’s assignment, many expected her to dominate proceedings again with not a single filly in the field having finished ahead of her in any of her 13 race day starts.

Ironically, despite having to share honours with a rising star in the 3yo fillies ranks, Treacherous Baby (Captaintreacherous), she kept that record in tact with the pair not being able to be separated by the judges photo after much deliberation in trying to produce a winning margin.

Having worked forward from their wide draws, the pair of fillies found themselves in command of the race with Zachary Butcher and Duchess Megxit taking the lead off of Blair Orange and Treacherous Baby with a lap to run in the 1980m event.

With nobody eager to take the Purdon/Phelan filly on in front, the race essentially became a 200m sprint home with the Purdon Racing filly showing her marked improvement this time in to run Duchess Megxit to a dead-heat at the finish.

Addington Raceway commentator Matt Cross was initially in favour of the Mark & Nathan Purdon pupil but revoked his judgement, and rightly so. Neither of the eventual winning drivers were confident either!

“Don’t have too many of them (dead heats), especially in these types of races, it’s better than running second,” said the country’s leading reinsman, Blair Orange after hearing the call which saw his charge, Treacherous Baby, win her third race in succession.

“I knew it was pretty tight, and didn’t really want to make a call, but we will take the dead-heat,” he said.

Zachary Butcher echoed those sentiments after securing his sixth victory aboard Duchess Megxit.

“I actually thought I got beat to be honest, she is such a lovely filly on our back and she was always going to be hard to beat. But full credit to Duchess, she stuck to her guns and held on for the dead heat,” said Butcher.

“I feel like she will get better with the run, those good horses they seem to get better with racing and a run like that at Addington, knowing Barry and Scotty, they will peak her for the right time,” he said.

The winning time for the 1980m mobile journey was 2:24.0, with a mile rate of 1:57.0 and closing sectionals of 57.1 and 27.2.

HILARIOUS GUEST 3YO FILLIES CLASSIC REPLAY

The Bob Butt trained Classic Elegance was impressive in behind making many lengths up to run third behind the winning pair with not many excuses for the remainder of the field who were outclassed by what looks to be the front runners for the fillies features remaining on the calendar.

Many in the division will clash again on Cup Day with the G1 Nevele R Fillies Final which is sure to be another epic spectacle.

For complete Addington race results, click here.

by Brad Reid, for Harnesslink