Sunday night’s Yeates Printing Sale Sprint Championship (440m) finalist Perfect Colour has flown under the radar throughout his 51-start career, with Pearcedale trainers Jim and Jane Reynolds adopting a ‘small fish are sweet’ approach with their well-bred sprinter.
Irish-born Jim and Jane, who’s from England, have placed their home-bred son of Fernando Bale and Cooler Colour to perfection, winning 19 of his 51 starts, with 17 minor placings.
But Perfect Colour is certainly up to mixing it with the ‘big guns’, as he demonstrated when running down local superstar Dr. Tucker to qualify fastest for Sale’s $10,000 to-the-winner Sprint Championship.
“I think he can keep up with them!” said Jim Reynolds.
“We’ve been happy to travel around the countryside, looking after him, and he’s won $61,000 in prizemoney doing that!
“He’s won Grade 5 finals at Healesville, Sale, Shepparton and Warragul and he beat Ferdinand Boy in a Mixed 6/7 final at Bendigo early on, running 23.81sec.
“He’s probably only raced for three months of this year, due to a couple of viruses and a chip in his hock.
“He had eight weeks off with the hock and came back and won a FFA at Bendigo in 23.83sec. But then his litter brother, Shared Colour, broke his leg in the next race, so it was chocolates to boiled lollies. But Shared Colour is good and I’m hoping to get him back.”
Perfect Colour had his first taste of Group competition in the recent Healesville Cup heats, where he ran an unlucky fifth to Aston Titan, beaten less than three lengths, before tackling last Sunday’s Sprint Championship qualifiers.
Drawn in Box 7 in the third and final heat, Perfect Colour ($5.90) was able to cross into second place behind Bill McMahon’s hometown hero Dr. Tucker ($1.70), which was first-up after 10 weeks.
In a thrilling finish, Perfect Colour grabbed Dr. Tucker in the final stride in a Best Of Night 24.61sec.
“Perfect Colour had won at Warragul on Tuesday by six lengths in the best time of the night (25.87sec),” Jim said.
“I was a bit worried about only having five days between runs, I normally like a week, but he was able to run down Dr. Tucker in the best time of the night again.
“The four (Zipping Hamish) kept Dr. Tucker off the rail early and he only had two lengths on us. Dr. Tucker was coming back from a spell and that gave us the chance to run him down and Perfect Colour got him right on the line.”
All-conquering three-time country cups winner Ferdinand Boy won the opening heat in 24.73sec, while Dr. Tucker’s kennelmate Sweet Demi upset Omega Dodge and $1.30 favourite Aussie Secret in heat two at $43, running 24.75sec.
Perfect Colour has again drawn wide for Sunday’s final in Box 8, with key rivals Ferdinand Boy and Dr. Tucker to exit Boxes 2 and 4 respectively.
“We’re happy with Box 8,” said Jim.
“Hopefully he can stay out of trouble out there.
