By Adam Hamilton\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Kiwis came, didn\u2019t conquer but won huge respect at Albion Park last night.<\/p>\n
Exciting Kiwi pair Dash Dosh and Marketplace ran fantastic second placings in the two Group 1 features.<\/p>\n
Tom Bagrie\u2019s first Aussie raid with a horse proved memorable when Dash Dosh ran a terrific race behind star Victorian mare Jilliby Dreamlover in the $150,000 Group 1 Great Square.<\/p>\n
In the next race, Regan Todd\u2019s young star Marketplace beat all bar champion mare Captains Mistress in a record-smashing $350,000 Group 1 Rising Sun.<\/p>\n
Bagrie lamented what might have been and confirmed Dash Dosh would stay in Brisbane for another two races at Albion Park in coming weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cLuck didn\u2019t quite go our way tonight, but she ran a great race and getting a Group 1 second in such a strong race is great,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Dash Dosh burnt off the gate from four to lead, but Jilliby Dreamlover had even more speed and crossed her from six.<\/p>\n
Then the twist came when Jilliby Dreamlover then took a sit on Tracy The Jet, which pushed Dash Dosh back to three pegs.<\/p>\n
Driver John Dunn hunted for inside runs and was held up briefly by the winner, but he was sure the mare had her chance to win.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought about coming off the pegs down the back, but I\u2019m not sure it would\u2019ve changed things. The winner was holding me on the line. She gave a great burst of speed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought she went great, our mare. That was a hot race and we burnt a bit early and she still finished the race off well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Winning co-trainer Paddy Lee confirmed Jilliby Dreamlover would take the golden ticket into the $500,000 Inter Dominion Trotting Grand Final on July 18.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs long as she comes through it well, she\u2019ll go on to the big one,\u201d he said. \u201cShe\u2019s been there and done it before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jilliby Dreamlover won a heat of the Great Southern Star and ran third to stablemates Keayang Zahara and Jilliby Ballerini. She also ran second in the Group 1 Macarthur Mile at Menangle in May.<\/p>\n
In contrast to Dash Dosh, Marketplace is heading for a break before aiming at the spring riches in Canterbury.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was always the Grand Final. He\u2019s gone great and can head home now,\u201d Todd said.<\/p>\n
Marketplace\u2019s run to work hard early, land the one-one trail and finish a brave second to the phenomenal Captains Mistress was monstrous.<\/p>\n
As dominant as Captains Mistress was, she led on the marker pegs and had Marketplace been on the pegs he would have gotten much closer.<\/p>\n
But Captains Mistress was sublime and her incredible 1min50.3sec mile rate for 2138m took 0.7sec off Leap To Fame\u2019s track record.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s just amazing,\u201d driver Cam Hart said. \u201cIt\u2019s a relief to get the win because this has been a plan for so long, win this and go on to the Inter Dominion (pacing) final.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like Jilliby Dreamlover, Captains Mistress\u2019 win landed her a golden ticket and connections will snap it up.<\/p>\n
She firmed from $6 to $4.50 second favourite in the pacing final behind Leap To Fame, who comfortably won his first round heat last night.<\/p>\n
In the trotting final, former Kiwi and now local Queensland star Gus romped home in his heat last night and is into $1.35 for the final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Adam Hamilton\u00a0 The Kiwis came, didn\u2019t conquer but won huge respect at Albion Park last night. Exciting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-510428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}