Last year’s Australian Cup winner Buckle">Buckle Up Wes turns four in June but trainer Ted Medhurst believes the dog is back to his best for Saturday night’s fourth Heat of the Group 1 Ladbrokes Paws Of Thunder at Wentworth Park.
Tasmanian-trained Buckle Up Wes (pictured, white rug), who was a luckless fourth (later upgraded to third due to Warrior King's disqualification) in Tonk’s Golden Easter Egg final at Wentworth Park in 2014, is chasing his 31st win in 53 starts on Saturday night.
The dog was all the rage for the Golden Easter Egg after drawing box one but he wanted to move off the track at the first turn and found trouble.
“I’m really happy with box eight on Saturday,’’ Medhurst said.
“He hasn’t raced for a month but his two most recent trials have indicated to me that he is back on song.
“Whenever he goes to The Meadows or Wentworth Park nice and fresh he usually explodes out of the boxes and I can’t see why he wouldn’t do the same on Saturday.’’
Last year's Topgun winner has been a star performer on the track for Medhurst, a retired carpenter.
“Buckle Up Wes has been a fantastic dog to me and his owners," Medhust said. "Every morning when I get him out of his kennel I never fail to give him a pat and thank him for all he has done.’’
Also scattered through the fields will be 22 members from the Dailly kennels making the trip north to Wentworth Park.
Kennel representative George Dailly hopes to have a few winners up his sleeve and with the likes of Meadows track-recorder holder Allen Deed and the in-form Dyna Double One, look to have a formidable team at their disposal.
Dailly has confirmed that Dyna Double One should be in top form for the night after his victory in the Group 1 Silver Chief Classic last week.
“Dyna Double One is just a baby but I’m sure he will handle the track,” Dailly said.
“Allen Deed is also good as gold after his run (last Saturday) and is 100 per cent ready to go. As long as he gets a clear run he can run any sort of time here.”
Victorian trainer Peter Dapiran has ZIPPING Maggie and ZIPPING Rory in Saturday night’s two Ladbrokes Summer Distance Plate Heats but says the former is going the better of the two.
“ZIPPING Rory is not going quite as well as he was when he beat ZIPPING Maggie in the Schweppes Summer Cup at Wenty on December 6 but I had to give him a shot at this race,’’ Dapiran said.
“He seems to have drawn the slightly weaker Heat and he loves Wentworth Park, so if he is going to bounce back it will happen on this track.
“ZIPPING Maggie is in the second Heat and she is going as well as ever.
“She will need a bit of luck from box three though because Space Star has box eight.
“ZIPPING Maggie’s past two unplaced runs at Sale can be discarded because she got bashed around at the start in both those races.’’
Space Star’s trainer Robbie Britton was hoping for box eight and while he has run 41.84 for the 720m, ZIPPING Maggie has clocked 41.78.
But Space Star is almost certainly racing better now than when he was last seen in Sydney.
Best value bet on Saturday should be Winsome Jacko in Heat three of the Paws Of Thunder.
Winsome Jacko likes to race in the middle of the track so only needs to begin cleanly to be well suited in box five.
And the winner of five from 10 starts has drawn arguably the weakest of the eight Paws Of Thunder Heats.
There have been two scratchings from the Heats - Iva Vision (Heat Two) and Renatus (Heat One).
Jeff Collerson's Wentworth Park Saturday picks:
Best Bet: Space Star (Race 6)
Best Value: Winsome Jacko (Race 3)
Quaddie: Race 5 – 8, 7, 2
Race 6 – 8, 6
Race 7 – 4, 2, 7
Race 8 – 1, 4, 6
$20 for 37.03%
