Amazing Chase Winner On Nationals Trail

THE Kiwi version of the Sandown Park hosted Speed Star series, the $60,000 Amazing Chase, resulted in an emphatic win for the Craig Roberts prepared Dyna Dave. 

After a six week qualifying period held on the Addington, Hatrick and Manukau tracks, the leading qualifiers converged at Addington Raceway last Sunday afternoon.

Dyna Dave was drawn in the first 520m match race and he was up against the recent Victorian import She's For Us who is prepared by Roberts' son, Matt. 

She's For Us led out her rival and she set up a solid tempo down to the back mark where Dyna Dave muscled up, drew alongside her on the final turn and cleared out for his strong 29.70s match race win which ultimately proved to be the winning time.

His rival gamely stuck to her task which saw She's For Us clock a 29.91 time and that was sufficient for her to claim the overall third time.

It was anticipated that the Steve Clark prepared Pinny Mack could give Dyna Dave's time a nudge and it was race on when Pinny Mack flew the traps and cut out his first couple of sectionals quicker than Dyna Dave.

However he wasn't able to bring it home strongly and he finished up with a sound overall 29.79 clock, sufficient for the runners up prize. 

The two remaining match races didn't approach the first two heat times with the Peter Ferguson trained Robson (30.06s) and Nature's Gent (30.15s) from the Angela Turnwald kennels prevailing in them.

"I was happy with Dave's time and I was reasonably confident that his time would hold up. Yes I was closely watching the clock when the other three matches went around and I guess it was more a feeling of relief when Dave was confirmed as the winner. 

"I was really pleased for him as he's finally won a major feature race – he really deserved it. I thought the whole event was really well run and I reckon it's a great concept (match racing)," advised Craig Roberts who now aims his charge towards another big ticket event.  

It promises to a real lucrative couple of weeks for the Roberts' kennels as he now moves forward to the pair of $50,000 NZ Nationals finals that will be decided at Addington Raceway on August 8. 

Dyna Dave will start as the very warm favourite to take out the NZ Nationals Sprint event over 520m, while his outstanding staying kennelmate Dyna Weslyn will be all the rage to annex the NZ Nationals Distance decider.

The winner of both of those races will then represent New Zealand when they head over to Perth to contest the A$75,000 to-the-winner Australian Nationals finals over the sprint and distance trips on August 24.

Dyna Dave's Amazing Chase victory saw him lift his career stake earnings up to $168,872, the result of 33 wins and 22 minor placings from his 69 race day outings.