PACING
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STEVE and Amanda Turnbull continue to dominate at the Bathurst Paceway as they saluted in a quinella during one of the feature events on a stacked Wednesday night program.
Amanda Turnbull guided four-year-old gelding Polished Rocks ($6) to victory in the $7,950 Western Districts Championship Final (2,260 metres) for her father Steve, who trained the horse.
He also happened to be in second on another one of their stable’s in-form members, Jedi Mind ($4.50).
The pair both had to overcome some difficulty during their runs, Polished Rocks doing well to avoid $2.80 favourite El Chango after the Neal Wardle-trained gelding galloped in the opening stages.
Amanda Turnbull then had to settle for a run along the pegs before weaving her way through traffic over the closing 500m and getting home by just under three metres.
She admitted after the race that she thought her charge might have been spent.
“I though he was gone when we got to the top of the last straight, he didn’t feel like he had a lot left,” the driver said.
“It took a lot of yelling to get him going again, but he picked it up when he needed to.
“The plan initially had been to try and go straight for the pegs anyway, so what happened at the start with El Chango didn’t matter too much in the end.
“His [Polished Rocks] run in the heat in Parkes was pretty impressive in his first start back from a spell and that’s why I chose him to drive over Jedi Mind.”
There was no shortage of activity in the opening stages of the race as Nathan Hurst on rank outsider Opening Move ($71) took off like a bullet when the gates folded back to try and earn front spot.
Somart ($151) was equally spritely in the early going and the duel between the two led to a slick lead time of just 46.8 seconds.
Ultimately it didn’t pay off as Haka Shannon ($5.50) reclaimed front position, having started from the inside gate.
The field were strung out for the first 1200m thanks to the early pressure, but a slow opening quarter of 31.1 seconds allowed them to bunch up once more.
Haka Shannon stayed in front and driver Murray Sullivan tried to ramp up the pace with a second sectional of 29.2, but the challengers were starting to make their runs behind him.
Steve Turnbull decided to take Jedi Mind three-wide down the back the last time and didn’t seem too concerned about covering extra ground.
It almost paid off for him as it looked at the top of the straight like he might be the most likely to emerge from the pack, but instead it was left to Polished Rocks to take that role.
In the end Jedi Mind narrowly fought off Scott Tom ($4.50) to hold on for third by a half-neck while Haka Shannon faded to fourth.
The final two quarters took 29.1 and 29.5 seconds respectively for a mile rate of exactly 1:58.0.
It was the seventh career win in 40 starts for Polished Rocks, a son of Pacific Rocket out of Divine Miss Emm.