Ocean Ridge Stamps Derby Credentials
30 March, 2018
Harness
Ocean Ridge has emerged as a serious contender for next Friday night’s WA Derby at Gloucester Park, following a dominant win in the Owners Only-WA Derby Prelude last night.
The Greg Bond-trained gelding was having just his second start in Australia, following his comfortable win at Pinjarra on his Australian debut on March 19, and now looks set to play a major part in next week’s Group 1 feature.
Another New Zealand import King Of Swing, for the powerful Gary Hall Snr and Jnr combination, was sent around a $1.12 TABtouch favourite, while Ocean Ridge jumped as a $9.50 second elect.
Driver Ryan Warwick settled Ocean Ridge towards the tail of the field in the early stages of the $20,000 event, before King Of Swing made a mid-race move to take the lead, which allowed Ocean Ridge to take the trail one out one back.
On the final lap, Warwick peeled off the back of Cott Beach, and set out to run down King Of Swing, who was under pressure a long way out from the winning post.
Ocean Ridge took the lead 400m from home and was never under pressure from Warwick, and was able to cruise to a 6m victory over King Of Swing, who fought on gamely to run second.
Another runner from the Hall Snr stable Speed Man ran home gamely from last to finish third.
The win took Ocean Ridge’s record to four wins from 11 starts.
All of the eight runners engaged in last night’s Prelude are among 24 nominations for the WA Derby next Friday night.
Meanwhile, the other feature on the night the Group 2 Easter Cup was taken out by Importer Exporter.
Tim Walker