Startling win by Secret Beach at Cambridge

By Michael Guerin

Trainer Steve Telfer knew Secret Beach was good.

But even he was surprised by the statement performance from his untapped three-year-old at Cambridge on Friday night.

Having just his sixth start he beat the older horses to record the fourth win of his career in a 1:55.2 mile rate for the 1700m mobile.

But that doesn’t begin to tell the story of the victory as Secret Beach sat three wide for the entire race, every single step of it.

That might happen once a year in a 1700m race at Cambridge but it might have only happened two or three times in the last 30 years in this grade, let alone a three-year-old against older Country Cups level pacers.

It was monstrous and while it is easy to get carried away by any ray of sunshine in the depths of winter, the win suggested Secret Beach is not going to need to improve too much to make it most of the way to open class.

“I thought he was vulnerable tonight,” admitted Telfer, who trains in partnership with his sister Amanda.

“Because he doesn’t have high gate speed yet I thought he might have to sit parked to win, which would be tough enough to do.
 
“But you just don’t see them sit three wide in this grade for an entire race and win. And there were some pretty good horses in there.”

Telfer told HRNZ readers a few weeks ago he thought Secret Beach was a Derby horse and it will be hard to find anybody to argue with him now but the question might be: which Derby?

His first plan is heading south to Addington for the better three-year-old races starting mid October and if he does stablemate Allamericanplayer and exciting filly Rule The Waves could head south too.

“But I also haven’t ruled out taking those other two to Victoria for the Derby and Oaks over there so this horse has options,” says Telfer.

“I will talk to Mandy because they have some really nice three-year-olds in their barn down south too.”

The win was the highlight of a night where local driver Peter Ferguson was the star in the sulky, driving four winners.

He reined two for father and son training team Peter and Vaughan Blanchard including the feature Silk Road Final winner Hill Billie Bundy and earlier Patrick Mahomes.

Ferguson also piloted two winners for Robert and Jenna Dunn with Dave Duley leading throughout to win while Very Majestic made the most of a perfect run to beat the brave Paramount Spur in the last trot.

Earlier, Hunterville trainer Scott Dickson scored one of the biggest CD wins at Cambridge in a while when Tatanka left maiden grade by seven and three-quarter lengths.