What History Says: Retravision-Fremantle Cup
10 January, 2019
Harness
This Friday night sees the running of the time-honoured Retravision-Fremantle Cup (2536m) at Gloucester Park, the first of the two major Free-For-All races in WA for the year.
Run at Group 1 level and worth $300,000, this week’s edition has attracted another stellar line up of pacers, headlined by Miracle Mile winner My Field Marshal.
Some of the notable winners of the Group 1 event include; Pure Steel, Village Kid (x2), The Falcon Strike (x2), Im Themightyquinn (x3), Chicago Bull and last year’s winner My Hard Copy.
The first edition of the race was held at Richmond Raceway in Fremantle in 1928 and was taken out by Bay Patch.
The race was run at Richmond until 1991, before it moved to Gloucester Park.
It was run as a Standing Start event from 1928 to 1982, before it changed to a Mobile Start from 1983-1991.
The December 1991 edition through to the December 2009 edition of the race reverted back to Standing Start conditions, before it was once again changed back to a Mobile Start for the 2011 edition.
The Fremantle Cup has been Gary Hall Snr and Gary Hall Jnr dominated over the past two decades.
Hall Jnr is the most successful reinsman in the race’s history, winning it on eight occasions with five different horses; The Falcon Strike (2002,2004), Im Themightyquinn (2009, 2011, 2012), Im Victorious (2014), Beaudiene Boaz (2016) and Chicago Bull (2017).
Hall Jnr will look to record his ninth Fremantle Cup on Friday night when he teams up with the Justin Prentice-trained Rocknroll Lincoln.
Hall Snr recorded his first of his eight wins in the race with The Falcon Strike in 2002, then again with that pacer in 2004, as well as the three wins of Im Themightyquinn and the wins with Beaudiene Boaz, Chicago Bull and My Hard Copy (2018).
The champion trainer will be represented by Runrunjimmydunn in this year’s edition of the race.
The Village Kid Pace is generally considered the main lead up to the Fremantle Cup.
Beaudiene Boaz is the most recent pacer to complete the Village Kid-Fremantle Cup double back in 2016.
David Hercules also completed that same winning double in December 2014 and January 2015.
My Field Marshal will be looking to emulate those feats, after he took out the Village Kid a fortnight ago.
He will start from barrier two in Friday night’s feature and is a $1.45 favourite with TABtouch.
Tim Walker