Above: Cranbourne galloper Whitehaven Girl proved too good for the small field in race four.CRANBOURNE trainers prepared three of the eight winners at the Cranbourne Turf Club’s mid-week meeting last Thursday.
The locally trained winners included a dominant effort from Ray Cleaver’s rising star Whitehaven Girls in the Fillies and Mares Handicap over 1200 metres, together with an upset victory by Robbie Laing’s five-year-old gelding Command The Sea, which saluted at $22 in the seventh race on the program.
Whitehaven Girl downed a four-horse field halved from its original number of entries by scratchings, and started as a hot $1.70 favourite.
The lightly raced four-year-old mare was ridden perfectly by experienced jockey Brad Rawiller and was untroubled to win, bouncing back after two failed runs on metropolitan tracks during the Spring Racing Carnival.
Jade Da Rose gave Command The Sea a patient ride in the seventh race, also affected by the late withdrawal of seven of the 12 runners, to give Laing a victory on the day.
The other successful Cranbourne mentor was Mick Kent, whose well-supported gelding Banana Man took out the final race on the card, ridden by Michelle Payne.
