Two mares who will meet later in the season provided very different highlights on Friday evening in Addington.
Evangelist (Shadyshark Hannover) and Mr Kaplan (Betterthancheddar) could end up in the top fillies’ races later this year or even in early 2025, although their similarities end there.
Mr. Kaplan has long been a Group racing contender and with his improbable win in the best race of the night on Friday, he was a first-class rider through and through.
The second favorite was her first start in a new season and got stuck behind the starting line in an absurdly run 2600 m race.
She was still four lengths behind the leaders in the 200m and victory never seemed likely until she fought against the tide and took a fairly dynamic win.
Evangalist’s win in the previous race was not quite as pretty to watch, but she posted the better section results, battling past Lakelsa with a time of 56.7 seconds in the final 800m.
Evangelistic repetition
It was the ninth career win for the now six-year-old daughter of Shadyshark Hanover, and co-trainer Jason Thomas believes she deserves another chance with the good mares if the opportunity arises.
“She would have been in the Breeders Stakes (Group 1) last season, but she missed the heat because of a small problem and that meant she didn’t make the field for the big race,” says Thomas, who trains with his father Ian.
“But she has shown on a number of occasions that she can keep up with these mares, so we want to give her her chance.”
And they might as well do so, as Evangelist is only leased to her owners from the Grice family of breeders, so once she stops racing she will return to her breeders for the next phase of her career.
“She’s done such a great job. It’s not easy to win so many races and hopefully she’s not finished yet,” says Jason.
The Thomas stables currently have 12 horses, having recently peaked at 15-20. Jason says they would like to increase that number again.
“We are fortunate to have some really good owners, but it can be difficult to find new owners when you have some really big stables where people are keen to board horses.
“But the door is open and we have a few other nice horses, so things are going pretty well.”
Earlier in the evening, Mr Kaplan’s stablemate Five Crowns had defied the odds on his stablemate The Bettor Deal to win the two-year-old race, in which the first three horses were expected to be in good form.
Bettor Deal was placed at $3.30 at the start and led for Mark Purdon but was given little rest in the final 800m as Treasure Cove remained parked.
The latter had a huge lead over The Bettor Deal, but was then caught in the fast lane by Five Crowns.
Also in the spotlight from Friday evening will be the two-year-old mare Habibti Pat, who defeated the older trotters on her debut under trainers Greg and Nina Hope.
She is the second foal of the former outstanding trotter Habibti Ivy and looks like a young horse who has a very productive second half of the season ahead of her.
The complete race results can be found Click here.
Out of Trotting New Zealand
