Ken Casellas | Photo: PACEPIX<\/p>\n
Copy Cat Queen broke fresh ground at Gloucester Park on Friday night when she became the first mare to win the $50,000 Taste of WA Four-Year-Old Championship in the 16TH running of the Group 3 feature event.<\/p>\n
And now ace trainer-reinsman Aiden De Campo is setting his sights on the $200,000 Golden Nugget on November 7 when he hopes that the WA-bred Copy Cat Queen will become only the third mare to win the race in its 44-year history, following the successes of Countess Karla in 1999 and Libertybelle Midfrew in 2014.<\/p>\n
For De Campo it is a case of him seeking to fulfil some unfinished business after he trained and drove Sorridere to a fast-finishing second to Mister Smartee in last year\u2019s Golden Nugget after Sorridere had finished a half-head second to the favourite OK Boomer in the Four-Year-Old Championship the previous month.<\/p>\n
Copy Cat Queen was the $2.90 favourite from the prized No. 1 barrier in Friday night\u2019s 2130m event. A noted brilliant sit-sprinter, Copy Cat Queen was seen in a different role as the pacemaker.<\/p>\n
She was beaten out by the No. 2 horse Im Lightning Banner, who got a length clear but was unable to cross Copy Cat Queen, who booted through on the inside. Alta Tribute ($10) got to the breeze after about 600m, and then Franco Motu ($10) assumed that position 200m later.<\/p>\n
After a lead time of 36.6sec. and modest opening quarters of 30.3sec. and 30.2sec. Copy Cat Queen dashed over the final 400m sections in 28sec. and 27.7sec. to beat the $3 second fancy Justcallmemiki by a head, rating 1.55.4. Justcallmemiki began from the inside of the back line and trailed Copy Queen all the way before finally getting clear 120m from the post and finishing fast.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe plan was to lead,\u201d explained De Campo. \u201cShe had never led (all the way) before but from barrier one I thought I should have a crack (to lead) and she handled it all right, probably not at her brilliant best, but she beat a good group of boys, which is hard to do as a four-year-old mare.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe has come along in leaps and bounds in this prep, and we will go for the Nugget and then the $150,000 Mares Classic. She beat all the four-year-olds tonight, so why shouldn\u2019t we go again in the Nugget.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Norms Daughter Classic (a $100,000 event for mares) is on the same night as the Nugget which is worth $100,000 more than that race.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe showed tonight that she can match it with the boys, and over the 2536m in the Nugget we can drive her to her normal pattern (as a sit-sprinter) where she has that lethal sprint. She\u2019s not tested against the aged mares yet, but her sectionals are good enough (to give her a chance in the Mares Classic against the State\u2019s top mares).\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ken Casellas | Photo: PACEPIX Copy Cat Queen broke fresh ground at Gloucester Park on Friday night when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3004,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-196076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}