Watermelon Sugar capitalises on perfect trip

Watermelon Sugar (Sweet Lou) trained by Cran and Chrissie Dalgety, capitalised on a perfect trip behind harness racing stablemate Franco Mecca to get up and win the Oamaru Juvenile Stakes at Oamaru today beating Rakamurph by a length and a quarter with Franco Mecca a half a head back in third.

“There’s not a lot between them,” Chrissie said of the stablemates.

The race was thrown wide open when favourite Final Collect (Mark Purdon) had to be dragged back to the tail of the field after drawing the inside of the second row.

“Mark’s horse was the one to beat but he got back so he had a bit of ground to make up.”

WATERMELON SUGAR REPLAY

Dalgety said today’s race was not only about the racing.

“It’s good to bring them down to a great track like this and they get that experience of a three hour drive.”

Today is the first time in twenty five years that the Oamaru Juvenile Stakes has been run. A regular feature between 1941 and 1997, it’s great to see it back on the Oamaru track. Previous winners include Jay Ar, Holy Hal, Noodlum, Comedy Lad and Honkin Vision.

Cran’s late father Jim trained the last winner, Hilarious Heather in 1997.

Watermelon Sugar’s time of 2-25.6 equalled the track record held by Cantfindabettorman.

For complete race results, click here.

By Bruce Stewart for Harnesslink