SA St Leger Final Shaping As Competitive Feature Race
Last Thursday night at Angle Park there were three terrific Semi Finals of the SA St Leger where the first two placegetters from each semi-final and fastest two thirds qualified for this week's feature Final.
The fastest qualifier for the Final was the Ron Schadow trained Victa Troy who led throughout from box 8 in semi-final 1 to record a slick 29.90 for the 515m journey easily accounting for the Shaun Matcott trained Fridli Bale by 5¼ lengths. Victa Troy has been racing in strong company recently at Angle Park highlighted by making the Group 3 SA Sprint Championship Final back in January and looks one of the strongest hopes in Thursday night's Final.
The second semi-final was taken out by the Michael Giniotis trained Wot Price Jack who made full use of box 2 to pounce on the lead and hold on for a solid victory in a slick 29.91 defeating the Shaun Matcott trained Lektra Train by 3¾ lengths. He started at the juicy odds of $12.00 and again will be at eachway odds after drawing box 8 in Thursday night's final. Lektra Train again will have his supporters after coming up with box 1 which should allow for him to get a lovely run in the final.
The third semi-final was taken out by the Bozidar Stamenkovic trained chaser Koombooyana Girl who made it 4 wins in a row after she began nicely from box 6 to lead throughout recording a comfortable victory over the Kim Johnstone trained Trumby by 4½ lengths in a quick 29.96. She has been in brilliant form recently with the Stamenkovic kennel on fire and even after drawing box 7 in the final she has shown she can win from any box.
In a fabulous training performance Shaun Matcott has produced four of the eight finalists Thursday night with his good bitch Jessenia Bale just squeezing into the final as one of the fastest third placegetters. She has a very imposing record of 34 starts for 12 wins and 11 placings and after drawing perfectly in box 2 she shouldn't be underestimated.
The $14,000 Feature Final will be run this Thursday night 8th March at Angle Park. It will be race 8 on the program and is listed to jump at 9.11pm (SA time).
The Final field in Box Draw order is:
2012 SA St Leger Final
1. Lektra Train Shaun Matcott
2. Jessenia Bale Shaun Matcott
3. Trumby Kim Johnstone
4. Victa Troy Ron Schadow
5. Darren Bale Shaun Matcott
6. Fridli Bale Shaun Matcott
7. Koombooyana Girl Bozidar Stamenkovic
8. Wot Price Jack Michael Giniotis
Reserves
9. Buddy Magician (1st Res) Chris Cotton
10.My Little Star (2nd Res) Bozidar Stamenkovic