PACING
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GOULBURN four-year-old Western Burner has produced a brilliant performance to make it back-to-back wins, holding off a fast-finishing rival at the Bathurst Paceway on Wednesday night.
The $2.80 favourite, trained by David Hewitt and driven by Scott Hewitt, smashed all but one of his nine rivals in the Lexus of Dubbo Lordship Pace (2130 metres).
Despite that dominance, it looked as though he would be run down in the final stretch by Ashlee Siejka’s El Mega ($4.40), who was on the fly as they hit the last 150m.
However, Hewitt’s gelding hung on, backing up his win at the same venue seven days earlier and making it three victories in his 19-race career.
It was a good night for the father-son duo, with David driving his $26.70 outsider Shadow Son to victory in the following race while Scott had a win on $12.90 two-year-old Always Will for his uncle Bernie Hewitt
“He’s really put it together in his last few runs,” Scott Hewitt said of Western Burner.
“He sat there near the front nice and handy, the speed was really on and that meant everything was in his favour.
“It has only been in the last few weeks that he’s back from a spell, so he’s coming along very nicely and we’re going to keep him racing for a while. The Menangle heats are very nice sorts of races for this fellow.”
Early on, another Hewitt horse in Kenneth Lloyd ($6.10) set the pace from the inside gate, with Mitchells Moment ($6.40) the only other starter putting pressure on for front sport.
They went through a quick lead-time of 37.7 seconds, and it was followed by a 29 seconds first quarter which had an effect on some of the chasers.
With the pace on, Nathan Hurst had to concede defeat initially and settle for a spot at the back on Getaloadathis ($18.10).
The field stayed in formation for the first half of the race and were cut some slack by the frontrunners with a 30.9 second quarter. The moves started to come at the top of the back straight.
Western Burner was eye-catchingly fast during that stretch, going from one-out and one-back to front spot in next to no time.
At that point the only other runner making ground was El Mega, who had tracked Western Burner for most of the race, and the pair easily cleared out from the main group after a third quarter of 29.2.
After a quick burst, Western Burner looked to be tiring and El Mega looked destined to waltz past – but the Goulburn gelding is made of sterner stuff. He simply put his head down and went again, holding on to win by 2.75 metres.
They finished a massive 27.25 metres clear of Art Appreciation, who himself hung on nicely to place after starting at $13.80.
The final quarter was a 30.5 for a mile rate of 1:59.0.