NSW has drawn first blood on a huge day of National Championships, with an emphatic win by the brilliant speedster Mr America in the Straight Track Championship at Richmond.
This year, for the first time, sees all three National Championships held on the same day in the same city, with the National Sprint and National Distance finals at Wentworth Park on Saturday night.
And it was Darren Sultana’s star who set the platform for the locals with a dashing performance up the Richmond straight.
The win took his remarkable record at the venue to 14 wins from 18 starts with two runner-up placings, and the time of 17.41s was just 0.01s outside his best and 0.09s outside the track record.
Second place went to Queenslander Milligan two lengths behind the winner, with South Australian representative He’s On Fire finishing third, a further ¾ length away. Sultana’s other finalist, Extra Specialism who defeated his kennelmate in the NSW title seven days earlier, was gallant in finishing fourth.
The win in the $25,000 final completes a double for Mr America and Sultana having last month headed to Queensland where he won the TAB Straight Of Origin Series at Capalaba.
For owner George Kairouz, the national straight track championship came 41 years after his mother-in-law Sylvia and late father-in-law John Attard, took out the title.
“This is a special win for the family,” George said. “John Attard, my father-in-law - God rest his soul, he passed away 20 years ago - he won the straight championship at Capalaba with a dog called Sharp Bianca 41 years ago. It broke the track record in the heats and broke the record again in the final.
“I have to give credit to Darren. He’s a nice quiet young man - you can’t get too many words out of his mouth - but he’s a gentleman and he’s done a great job with this dog.
“The dog loves it up the straight. I remember when Jason Thompson had him and when he was a pup and he was running against dogs like Shima Shine … that’s the opinion Jason Thompson had of him. Then he did his achilles and every time he put him around the circle he used to break down.
“He said if you can keep him up the straight he will be ok, so I said look Darren Sultana breaks all my dogs in, he’s a good young trainer, if I ask him to keep him up the straight he will.
“And what a great job Darren has done. He’s won 16 out of 20 up the straight and up straight doesn’t hurt his achilles. Vic (Sultana) and Darren they look after him, they are always massaging him and looking after him. I’m really pleased for them to have this success.”
NSW will be looking to add to their National titles at Wentworth Park through Super Estrella in the Distance Final, and a quartet of stars – Good Odds Cash, Simply Limelight, Bandit Ned and Ritza Donna in the Sprint final.
