Shane McMahon, representing the Back Bar owners syndicate, with Maidment Memorial distance final winner Mid City Mandy last week.By Brad Kingsbury
NICKNAMED ‘Flea’ by her handlers, tiny stayer Mid City Mandy upstaged more fancied runners with a thrilling all-the-way win in the $36,000 Group 2 Maidment Memorial at Sandown Park last week.
The feature race, named in honour of former long-time National Coursing Association secretary Roy Maidment, saw the honest Moe-trained chaser score her second Group race win of the year with the victory.
Mid City Mandy ($17.60) started from box 6, jumped brilliantly and led the star-studded field to the first turn, opening a comfortable break and maintaining her momentum to take out the 715-metre race by a head from the fastest heat winner Quidame ($1.80F).
Rank outsider Atomic Jet ($21.30) finished third.
The winner was one of two runners in the race for trainer Lauren Gorman, with her more fancied dog Spalding starting slowly and finishing in a dead heat for fourth with Rocky.
The winner ran a smart time of 42.22 seconds, with the $25,000 first prize bringing her earnings close to $120,000 from her 63-race career, which has included nine Group finals.
The only local winner on the program came in the lead-up race, when Keysborough dog Suppression, trained by Wayne Beer, saluted in the Charles Sammut Memorial Free For All.
Earlier in the night, Superman took out the $10,000 GOTBA Cup, flying home over the concluding stages to win by 1.75 lengths in a time of 29.91 seconds.
Trainer Emin Aydemir will now target the heats of the $29,000 Group 3 DDC Launching Pad on Thursday, 23 February at Sandown Park.
