SKATER CLAIMS BACK-TO-BACK WINS

By Graham Potter | Friday, March 1, 2024

There is no break in racing. The days simply flow into each other giving no respite to the racing stakeholders ... but, for all of that, it is still nice for a racing stable to kick off the new month with a winner. It is even better when that winner is saluting for the second time in a row ... and it is even better than that when the horse wins by a four-length margin.

Enter the Corey and Kylie Geran trained Skater, a four-year-old Jabali mare who lined up for a BM58 handicap over 1600m on the Sunshine Coast Poly Track on March 1, coming into the race on the back of a BM60 victory at Toowoomba on February 17.

Damien Thornton, who had won on Skater before, was back in the saddle here (Anthony Allen had guided Skater to victory at Toowoomba) and his immediate task was to take Skater (the short-priced $1.40 favourite) into the lead at the jump ... and he did that with the minimum of fuss.

Skater then held a one length advantage at the head of affairs as he took the field down the back stretch with Blue Swimmer ($19) the runner closest to her, and these two runners held station until the approach to the home turn where the race went on in earnest.

For a while on straightening, with the others struggling behind them, it was a two-horse race with Skater leading ... and extending now as Thornton got to work on his mount ... and Blue Swimmer chasing hard, trying to close the gap on the Geran trained runner.

Blue Swimmer remained a threat in the first half of the home straight, but Skater was strong and fully focussed on his task and her solid, sustained effort ultimately proved too much for Blue Swimmer to cope with, and the Geran trained runner left Blue Swimmer behind over the final 150m to move away to claim an emphatic victory, as highlighted by that four-length winning margin.

Skater is now a five-time winner from twenty-five starts ... with seven minor placings. Four of those wins have come in the ten starts Skater has had for the Geran stable.

This latest victory pushed her prize-money earnings through the $100 000 mark where it now sits on $104 210.

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