“It is one of our local clubs feature Restricted Age races, therefore it gives us great satisfaction to train the winner of it,” commented co-trainer Dave Fahey after mentoring the winner of the Christchurch Casino Canterbury Futurity for the seventh time on Thursday.
Pictured: Vikings strolling to his effortless Canterbury Futurity victory (pic Dave Robbie)
Those seven race wins has been since 2006 and on three occasions Dave along with his wife Jean has prepared the race trifecta. Thursday’s Addington 520m edition of the $25,000 Group 2 event saw the kennel produce the first four runners to finish with Vikings, Mazu, Opawa Brad and Min Ho finishing in that order.
Vikings was the fastest heat qualifier and he certainly didn’t waste any time whatsoever when he hummed away from the two trap to seize the early race lead. The son of Barcia Bale and Jinja Power slipped through his sectional in 5.82s, then he flew through to the back mark to clock a swift 17.71s second sectional. His run home time was clocked at 12.74s, resulting in an overall time of 30.45s on what was rated as a slow track. Vikings was credited with a 3.5 length winning margin for his winning connections, the I Pave Opawa syndicate.
Mazu owns strength and it was that asset that he really drew on to finish strongly from an early midfield position to claim second. The son of Bekim Bale and Delusionist held a comfortable three length margin over Opawa Brad who raced in the lead pack throughout the journey. This son of Winsome Opawa and Opawa Andrea kept on kicking on stoutly and held out the litter brother to Mazu, Min Ho by a 1.5 length margin. The Fahey’s qualified six finalists and between them they are all own by three owners. All three of those owners was represented by runners on the podium.
“That was a great result. Yes, Vikings has got a fair amount of pace alright – he’s getting better and better, improving all the time. I thought he was good enough to lead out and when he opened a gap on them down the back I knew then he would hang on.
“He does have sheer speed and he is getting stronger. You can’t beat times like his second sectional which is now matching what American Warrior (NZ Cup winner) can post. He is still only a C1 dog, so I’ll have to give him some grade races as we’ll now aim him towards the NZ Derby (Cambridge heats April 6),” advised Dave Fahey.
The race was a huge success for the Fahey family and also for a couple of their close friends as Fahey explains. “Our daughter Sarah and her partner Anthony reared the litters of Vikings and Mazu. They were the first two litters they reared since when set up our rearing property. Robin Wales and Daryl McLachlan have been two of our best owners for many years and they have been long time mates of ours so it is great to train Vikings for them.
The winning I Pave Opawa syndicate is a joint venture between the highly successful Opawa Racing and I Pave Concrete syndicates. The new syndicate was formed when Opawa Racing provided the I Pave Concrete team with a Bombastic Shiraz straw which was used on the classy greyhound Winsome Ashley (she’s still the Manukau 527m track record holder). The two syndicates then combined to successfully race Jinja Power from the resultant litter, which is an arrangement that continues with Jinja Power’s whelping’s, obviously including Vikings. In this instance that pact has now yielded them $23,475, the result of Vikings winning seven races along with two placings from his ten career races.
