Belle Biddy toughs it out at Cambridge

By Michael Guerin

The people closest to Belle Biddy have always thought she was pretty good.

Anybody who saw her win Friday nght’s Dunstan Horsefeeds Sires’ Stakes heat at Cambridge now agrees.

The daughter of Bettor's Delight and high-class mare Opoutama overcame sitting parked to beat most of the north’s best juvenile pacing fillies and paced a 1:54.1 mile rate for the 1700m.

She was there to be beaten as Lady Di to her inner challenged and then Daisy Bay down the outer flew home in the home straight but after looking in trouble on the home bend Belle Biddy was just too tough.

Her trainer Tony Herlhy, who only returned from holiday earlier in the day, has always had a high opinion of the filly and that instilled confidence in stable No.2 reinsman Tony Cameron to press forward early in Friday’s race.

“Barrier 5 was tricky but the one thing about her is I could use her early and then like a typical Bettors she relaxed,” says Cameron.

“We have always thought a bit of her but you don’t often see them winning like that.

“I am just not sure how long I will be able to keep the drive,” said Cameron, a nod to both his boss’s return and the obvious class Belle Biddy has.

As good as the winner was the other real eyecatcher was Daisy Bay, who was near last for much of the race and roared home suggesting she will be a force in the fillies ranks for the rest of the spring.

The challengers to Belle Biddy for performance of the night both came from trotters with Hill Billie Bundy superb winning her second Silk Road Final in three starts even after she was three wide for much of the 1700m mobile in a 1:58.8 mile rate.

And Majestic Whizdom may only have left maidens with her win later on card but she did it in real style, circling the field over the last lap and then racing clear to bolt in by over six lengths for Taitlyn Hanara.

Dino was good in his two-year-old boys pacing race and his stablemates No More Dreaming and War Party also impressed in giving the Purdon/Phelan team a treble for the night.

But their luck couldn’t last all the way to the main handicap pace in which Jeremiah was a luckless third as Blazing Louie made the most of a quick beginning and beautiful Nicky Chilcott drive to win from in front.