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They are one of the in-form kennels in the State at present and JODIE and Andy Lord added a feature race victory to their tally at Dapto on Thursday night when El Rapido came with a late run to win the Beteasy Maiden Final.
Despite striking trouble heading out of the straight, El Rapido balanced up and came with a dashing burst to grab Cousin Niall and Bethany Rose and collect the $10,000 first prize for her connections.
It was the perfect way to win your first race, with El Rapido having qualified for the final after finishing second to ZIPPING Phil in the heats two weeks ago, with the final win her first success in four outings.
The Maiden Final was scheduled to be run last Thursday night, but torrential rain saw the meeting abandoned midway through the card, and the final subsequently rescheduled to this week.
The event, one of the features on the Dapto calendar, was also expected to be battled out by the two favourites, ZIPPING Browny who had produced a stunning performance to win his heat, and Bobby The Brute who had scorched around the Dapto track in a stunning 29.64s in his heat.
But while the dominated the betting, that would be the only thing they would dominate.
But both were only moderately away, collided with each other early, and then ZIPPING Browny fell at the first turn, while Bobby The Brute was badly checked ended his chances. Incredibly ZIPPING Browny’s brother, ZIPPING Phil – both trained by Michelle Sultana – also fell on the first turn.
El Rapido actually narrowly avoided that drama, but was checked soon after rounding the first turn, and it looked like the leaders had got too far away.
But coming home in 12.60s, El Rapido reeled in her rivals and had 1 ½ lengths to spare on the line from Cousin Niall, with Bethany Rose a neck away third.
“She’s really strong,” Andy Lord said. “She still hasn’t worked the boxes out yet, and she was sort of rushed for this race, but she’s only young and she’s improving and she is very strong, so we’ll see what happens with her moving ahead.”
