Muscle Bank faultless with three on the trot

You know what they say about in form trotting mares in harness racing.

In today’s penultimate leg of the Seddon Shield Trotters Series at Westport’s Patterson Park, the Tom Bamford trained Muscle Bank (Muscle Hill) showed her class, overcoming a 20m back mark to keep her hopes alive for the $10,000 bonus at Reefton.

The blue blooded daughter of Muscle Hill was coming off back to back of race successes and has recently begun to show what many always felt she was capable of in time. And like a fine red wine, she appears to be getting better with age.

In a faultless display, the now seven year old mare stepped cleanly and settled last before whipping round the field to sit parked and proved far too strong in the run home seeing Muscle Bank extend her winning record to three with an emphatic two and a quarter length victory.

“She is just starting to mature I think and a bit of the hard racing is aiding that,” said her young trainer, Tom Bamford.

“She had a few niggles over her back and we are getting on top of them and managing them a bit better than we were previously perhaps. It’s made a huge difference to her gait and Sam came back and said she won pretty comfortably.

“It was a ten out of ten drive from Sam (Thornley). I told him if they were going too slow to get around them and she would outstay them but if they were running hard to let her rip late. He summed things up brilliantly and drover her accordingly to the tempo and she was too good for them,” he said.

MUSCLE BANK REPLAY

The Seddon Shield Trotting Series has added a lot of interest to the summer racing circuit with the $10,000 bonus up for grabs to the winner of the series which is decided by points accumulated from placings, with each of the nine legs worth between $15,000 and $20,000.

The Michael House trained Boyz Invasion was leading the series heading into today and finished on strongly for second to retain a two point lead at the top of the table heading into the finale at Reefton on Sunday.

“Once we knew we were second after the Blenheim meeting I thought we would have a good crack at the Seddon Trotters Series. She was only four points off Boyz Invasion so I had her pretty screwed down today and she trotted a lot better then she has been.

“I think she will be off 30m for Sunday and unfortunately its 100m less in the distance of the race. She is pretty versatile and the ten metres wont worry her. Sam will have to sum things up on Sunday but he’s three from three on her now so it’s hard to think he wont give her every opportunity,” he said.

After some bad weather earlier in the week, the weather turned it on for the punters on track, at least that’s how it looked from the comfort of the living room.

“It was a ripper day, the wind was a bit cold but there was a lot more people then I expected and it was great for the club to have a good crowd on course and reasonable fields for 11 races. It was a good day,” confirmed Bamford.

Bamford lined up Rakero Lightning (Bettor’s Delight) earlier in the day in the fourth on the card and after getting an uncontested lead, looked to be disappointing in the run home after battling into fifth.

Bamford shed some further light on the situation and it may pay for punters not to to throw the baby out with the bath water when it comes to her second day chances at Reefton.

“Sam said at the 400m that she was going to win for fun and if you watch the video as they get to the top of the straight, he’s given her one with the whip and she’s thrown her head up in the air and pulled up.

“I had the full block blinds on so I will change a bit of gear for Sunday and put that down to trainer error possibly,” he said.

Rounding out a successful afternoon for Bamford was a third placing with Ebury Street (Bettor’s Delight) and young junior Henry Sail combining for a cheeky third in the last on the programme.

“She whacked away good. She’s my galloping pacemaker and she goes away for trips with my team so anything we get with her is a bonus and we were chuffed with a third placing.

“I think she is good enough to do it, but it will depend on the tempo of the race. Fingers crossed we can get it done,” he said.

It was a great day for the locals on course with club stalwart and West Coast harness racing icon, John Reedy, picking up a training success on his home track with the second career victory of Stanley Rule in the fifth on the card. John Morrison did the steering with the success forming part of his race winning treble this afternoon.

Ironically the son of Sportswriter’s last win came on course at the same meeting 12 months ago, which was three months after clearing maidens at, you guessed it, the Westport Christmas meeting in 2022.

For complete Westport results, click here.

by Brad Reid, for Harnesslink