Trots

On Saturday, February 6, Moonee Valley hosted their final harness racing meeting of all time with the brilliant Sundons Gift taking out the highly anticipated trotting feature of the night, the $250 000 Group 1 SEW-Eurodrive Inter Dominion Championship (2575m) for back-to-back Inter Dominion success.

Trained and driven by Chris Lang, last year’s winner Sundons Gift outclassed his rivals once again as the $1.60 favourite beat home shock second placegetter, Queensland-trained Kasyanov ($147) by an easy 9.5m with Lang’s other runner Skyvalley ($5.50) finishing off the trifecta a further 3.8m back.

Improving trotter Cillas Earl ($38) was a close fourth just ahead of Acacia Ridge ($18.70) in fifth.

Sundons Gift showed sensational speed from barrier one to take the lead early, running a first quarter of 29.7s. The third pre-race favourite, Gavin Lang’s Don King ($9.60) was in second place for the first quarter, but went to three wide by the middle before eventually tailing off to finish seventh.

After a 31.8s second quarter, Sundons Gift still held a 3m lead from Don King while eventual second-placegetter Kasyanov moved to the inside.

Running 28.9s over the third quarter Sundons Gift increased his lead on the final turn, running clear from the pack as Don King tiered, slipping back and making way for Kasyanov to move up to second place.

As the leader kept pulling away for a sensational win, his stablemate Skyvalley moved up to third on the outside.

The eight-year-old winning Sundon gelding clocked a smart mile rate of 2:01.0 in his 29^th victory from 57 career starts. The $142 500 in Saturday’s Inter Dominion winnings bought his overall career earnings to $789 673.

With the win Sundons Gift became only the second horse in history to secure back-to-back trotting Inter Dominion Championships, the first since New Zealand runner Pride Of Petite in 1996/1997, and the first Australian bred trotter to achieve the feat.

The victory may have been Sundons Gift’s second, but his trainer went one better as it was Lang’s third successive Inter Dominion win.

Runner-up Kasyanov also made history as the first Queensland trained trotter to not only make the Inter Dominion Grand Final, but place in the top three as well.

The $30 000 Group 2 Inter Dominion Trotting Championship Consolation (2575m) was the other major trotting event at the meeting, won by Ronerail ($2.40) 4.7m ahead of Earl Of Mot ($9.50) with Chris Lang’s Kyvalley Mac ($32.40) in third.

2010 Inter Dominion Trotting Championship Results: