Horse racing

PETERS - WILLIAMS COMBINATION STRIKES AGAIN

Trainer Grant Williams delivered more racing plums for Bob and Sandra Peters when Battle Hero won the Schweppes-JC Roberts Stakes (1800m) and then the following race,  with Delicacy in the Natasha Stakes (2200m).

Battle Hero was ridden, unusually, in the lead, by champion jockey William Pike and held the advantage to the post, scoring by three quarters of a length from Tonto with Boom Time well beaten into third place.

Bob Peters confessed afterwards to being “not happy” with his main chance of four runners being in the lead but Battle Hero showed true grit to drive through the misty rain and record his fourth win in a row.

It was also back-to- back Roberts Stakes victories, for the triumvirate, as they had won with Respondent in 2014.

As Peters noted Battle Hero “just keeps doing the job.” The best of Peters other runners was Special Delivery (fourth) who loomed in the last 200m but failed to go on with the run for jockey Glenn Smith.

The slow time of 1.54.23 was well outside Golden Heights (1980) State record of 1.46. 80.

Race caller Darren McAullay didn’t miss a beat in this race despite difficult conditions, with the ghostly rain making the horses appear like spooky apparitions, particularly down the river side of the course.

Battle Hero was not the only impressive three year old to wear the cerise and white colours to victory as Delicacy, ridden by Peter Hall, was all class  in the Natasha Stakes.

The filly made it a hat trick of wins when she accelerated to the lead after moving from seventh to fourth at the 400m mark of the race. The $2 favourite beat the $101 shot, Shinta Mani by 1.75 lengths with another Peters-Williams galloper, Neverland ($2.50 ), third.

Hall said Delicacy was a real professional racehorse. “I trust her completely, she is gutsy, determined and gets the job done.” Something the heavyweight jockey also does well.

BRILLIANT DONGA: Shaun O’Donnell keeps getting the job done for trainer Paula Wagg and he was inspirational in the last race (1400m) with Thunderclap Newman railing brilliantly from the rear to run down Bayatorio, thus preventing a Lucy Warwick treble.

“I was certainly worried on the turn,” Wagg said. The trainer said she would start him over more ground in future. “He shapes as a ‘miler’ or 1800m proposition,” she said.

O’Donnell won a treble at Ascot last week and scored a mid week double at Bunbury. However, he now starts a 10 day suspension after incurring the Stewards wrath at Bunbury.