By Neil Evans
It’s the “Big Banana” sprint battle set on the Far North Coast between a lightly raced and resuming four-year-old who has already tasted success, and an older mare who’s been carrying the bridesmaid tag for longer than her connections care to remember.
Coffs Harbour duo Bow and Continuum clash in an intriguing Benchmark 58 sprint over 1000m at Ballina on Monday. And while their stable homes at Coffs are not far apart, their careers are very different stories, with plenty of questions still to be answered.
Bow, a gelded son of former top sprinter Bel Esprit and trained by Donna Grisedale, hasn’t started since early May when placed at Armidale.
That iced a successful first prep when he finished in the placings at all four starts, including a smart maiden win at Grafton in mid-April.
In typical stable preparation, Bow has bypassed any official trials, instead being put through his work impressively at home.
And with good tactical and push-button speed, he looms as the one to beat jumping from a middle gate, but drawn the outside, Continuum will beg to differ, desperately trying to win after four second placings in five starts since mid-September.
In fact, the five-year-old daughter of dual Group 2-winning Time For War and trained by David Matts is well used to finding one better.
Incredibly, she has only one victory from 37 starts, and that was a heavy track win at Grafton in March this year. Continuum has since run a string of placings, often without luck, and goes into today’s race with 15 placings from 37 runs.
Even more frustrating is that 10 of 11 second placings have come in only the last 18 weeks on all surfaces.
So little wonder connections are content to back the mare up in nine days from a game chasing effort at Port Macquarie.
Supplied by Racing NSW
