An incredible fourth country cup title beckons for Ferdinand Boy after the all-conquering provincial superstar added the Yeates Printing Sale Sprint Championship (440m) to his ever-growing trophy collection on Sunday night.
With the Shepparton, Ballarat and Healesville Cups already in their keeping, Lara trainer/owner/breeder David Geall confirmed the next stop for Ferdinand Boy will be Saturday night’s G2 Bendigo Cup heats (425m).
“It’s hard enough to win one, so four cups would be something!” quipped Geall.
Ferdinand Boy, a superbly-related son of Fernando Bale and Nayla Swift, was unbeaten in three appearances at Sale heading into Sunday’s $10,000 to-the-winner Sprint Championship and was chasing his second feature event at the track after edging out local star Dr. Tucker in the inaugural Horizon in June.
After spending the past two months competing exclusively at Healesville, Ferdinand Boy returned to the circle for Sale’s Sprint heats, where he clocked 24.73sec, with Perfect Colour’s 24.61sec the fastest qualifying effort.
Drawn in Box 2, as he was in both the Horizon final and his Sprint Championship heat, Ferdinand Boy started $1.90 favourite, ahead of Dr. Tucker (Box 4) at $3.20 and Perfect Colour (Box 8) $7.90.
Ferdinand Boy began fairly but accelerated quickly and drove to the lead, with Dr. Tucker and Perfect Colour in pursuit.
Dr. Tucker checked off Ferdinand Boy’s heels turning for home and the ‘country cups king’ wasn’t for catching as he scored by 1.5 lengths in a Best Of Night 24.58sec, a new PB at Sale.
“He just knows how to win the bigger events,” Geall said on Monday.
“He’s a great dog. He’s so reliable and doesn’t have an off run. He wants to win at all costs.
“He missed it a little bit last night and got a bit of a bump but he drove through.
“I was surprised with his time because there was torrential rain early in the night. There was a fair bit of lightning around too and when they put the meeting back an hour it looked like it might’ve been cancelled, so the track staff at Sale did a fantastic job.