Becky's Girl and Prestigious contrasting trotting winners at Ashburton

By Michael Guerin

The old adage about sticking with trotters in form proved spot on but in two very contrasting ways at Ashburton on Monday.

Because while Becky’s Girl and Prestigious both made it back to back wins in the two trotting features at the huge meeting they did it in opposite ways.

Becky’s Girl looked all over a NZ Trotting Oaks filly when she blew her rivals away coming from midfield in the Neumanns Tyres Hambletonian Classic while Prestigious continued to take giant strides up our open class trotting rankings with an all the way win in the Tactical Landing Trotters Sprint.

Becky’s Girl’s victory was anything but a surprise after she beat Oaks favourite Duchess Maria at Addington at her last start but the way she destroyed her opponents in Monday’s mobile 1700m was even better.

She sat midfield for Matty Williamson, which wasn’t really where most of the winners were coming from in the better races on Monday, but it took her about five strides at the top of the straight to explode past from very good three-year-olds.

“She has always had that great speed so I knew she be hard to beat once she let go,” said Williamson.

His mother Bev bred and owns Becky’s Girl who is of course trained by his father Phil and that sets us a real family feud at the head of the market for the Oaks at Addington on Friday week as Duchess Maria, trained by Nathan Williamson, is the Oaks favourite after her win at Invercargill on Sunday.

The oddity of the race was heavily-backed favourite Imperious Girl, who was slow off the gate, struggled for much of the race but made up a lot of ground very late for fifth.

While Becky’s Girl is flying in the three-year-old ranks Prestigious wins the award for the most improved trotter of the spring after leading throughout to beat Mr Love in the Trotters Open Sprint.

He bolted off the gate to lead but then driver Kimberly Butt had to chirp him up to stop him mucking around down the back straight, admittedly into the head wind that made the meeting so tricky for punters and drivers alike.

But while Mr Love looks to be heading in the right direction the way he stormed after Prestigious late, the leader never looked like getting run down and he heads into Cup week a horse very much on the rise.

He has gone from $51 when the market opened for the Renwick Farms Dominion into $8, with Gus the $2 favourite after his huge win in a fast time at Albion Park in his comeback race on Saturday night.

Trained by Butt’s partner Jonny Cox, Prestigious was bred and is owned by her grandmother Jenny Butt so the Dominion will be a special occasion for one of harness racing’s most famous dynasties.

On a day of big trotting performances Mr Mercedes broke his maiden in style winning the juvenile for trainer Brendon Hill and son/driver Seth while Princess Sadie, trained by Matty Williamson but driven by brother Nathan, was dazzling trotting a 1:56.7 mile rate to win a handy 1700m mobile earlier on the card.