Saturday’s Listed City Of Napier Sprint (1200m) capped a remarkable four-win sequence at Trentham for Slipper Island, whose trainer Tony Pike now has his eye on an even bigger prize at the Wellington track.
As recently as January of this year, Slipper Island was an underachiever with a record that fell far short of his talent. The five-year-old son of No Nay Never had won only twice in a 26-start career, with another nine minor placings and a rating languishing in the low 60s.
But Pike mapped out a series of sprints down the Trentham chute through the summer and early autumn, and Slipper Island has turned his whole career around with four straight wins. He kicked off the sequence in Rating 65 grade on Wellington Cup Day on January 18, followed by Rating 75 victories on March 2 and again under a 59kg topweight on March 29.
Saturday’s $80,000 black-type feature was another big step up in class, but Slipper Island rose to the occasion and carried on his winning way.
Slipper Island broke awkwardly from gate three, but soon recovered and took up a midfield position along the rail.
When the front-runner Idyllic rolled away from the fence coming across on to the course proper, jockey Lily Sutherland drove Slipper Island through on her inside.
Slipper Island dashed to the front with 200m remaining and quickly moved two lengths clear of Idyllic, but his job was far from over. Group One winner Pier was powering out of the pack, while the talented mare Tomodachi flew home down the extreme outside.
The three of them hit the finish line locked together, with Slipper Island maintaining a margin of a half-head over Pier. Tomodachi was the same margin away in third.
Slipper Island was offered by Hallmark Stud in Book 1 of Karaka 2021, where Pike Racing bought him for $180,000. He has now had 30 starts for six wins, nine placings and $246,664 in stakes.
“He was very good today,” Pike said. “He’s certainly loved that chute at Trentham in his last few starts and has gone to a whole new level.
“He’s probably done enough in this preparation now and can go out for a bit of a spell. We’ll see how he comes up next time in, but if he could get to the level of a race like the Telegraph (Gr.1, 1200m), that would be a great target to try to aim at.”
Slipper Island completed a black-type double on the Trentham card for Sutherland, who made a similar winning move along the inside rail aboard Mehzebeen in the Listed Valley D’Vine Restaurant Hawke’s Bay Cup (2200m).
By Richard Edmunds, LOVERACING.NZ News Desk
