Buzz Aussie pacer's season over

by Adam Hamilton

AUSTRALIA’S most exciting pacer Lochinvar Art won’t race again this season.

Don’t panic, there’s nothing wrong with him. It’s just there’s nothing major for him to target.

Trainer-driver David Moran looked into a Queensland winter raid, but all the big races up there have been scrapped or massively reduced in stakemoney.

And the ongoing zoned racing in Victoria renders keeping Lochinvar Art in work at home (Shepparton) a waste of time.

“I couldn’t have him better. I really think he’s gone to another level, but I’ve weighed everything up and decided to turn him out now,” he said.

“He’ll have a month out. I’ll check him after three weeks to make sure he’s doing well, but the plan is a month out and then bring him back up again.

“He takes a bit of work to get fit, so it’d take a couple of months or so.

“It’s hard to make plans until we see how everything looks in another month or two, but I’m working on having him primed again for a race like the Victoria Cup (in October).”

Lochinvar Art ended his stellar four-year-old season with a “bang” by slashing 0.5sec off the Shepparton 1690m track record with another dominant win last night (Friday).

Despite drawing the back row and sitting parked throughout, the son of Modern Art left his rivals standing on the home bend and won by 10.9m.

He paced the last half in 54.6 with splits of 27.1 and 27.5sec.

“It looked like I was driving him out, but that’s just because he’s so lazy and wants to switch-off,” Moran said. “He did that so easily.

“He’s just got better and better as this season has gone on. He’s thrived on going into those bigger races.

“He can have a break now and then we’ll come back and go for all the big races next season.”

Moran makes no secret of the fact he can’t wait to tackle the Sydney Inter Dominion with Lochinvar Art.

“He’s such a great doer and thrives on hard racing. He’ll love the three heats in a week into the final,” he said.

Lochinvar Art, somewhat of a bridesmaid at three, raced just eight times this term for five wins and a second, two of those wins at Group 1 level in the Chariots Of Fire and 4YO Bonanza.

But it was his huge second to King Of Swing in the Miracle Mile, at just his second run in the open class “big league”, which really underlined his meteoric rise.