Tara Murray
The racing was hot and there was plenty of fun and entertainment at Saturday’s St Albans Gift.
Returning after a year off due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there were plenty of top runners taking to the track in the 13th edition of the event.
Gift co-ordinator Terry O’Donnell said the crowd was bigger than what they expected.
“It was terrific,” he said of the event.
“The cup [racing] was good and the crowd was excellent. Being a nice day and night might have helped.
“At Hastings the previous week there had been a lot of scratchings and people stayed away, but that didn’t happen.”
O’Donnell said there had been plenty of entertainment for families to come along and have a fun day.
On track, there were quality runners across all the events with a bonus for the rich Stawell gift as an incentive to the winners. The meeting attracted numbers from all around Australia with more than 530 in total, including five from South Australia, and three from New South Wales.
The men’s 120 metre gift saw a quality field spread out from a handicap of 3.50 metres to 8.75 metres.
Outmarker Tom Griffin from Box Hill (off 8.75 metres) just holding on to take victory from Albury runner Munashe Hove (off 4.50 metres) and South Australian John Evans (eight metres).
The women’s gift was equally close with one of the backmarkers in Glen Waverley’s Cassandra Wang Lecouteur (seven metres) storming home to beat the outmarker Isabella Antonino.
In the 1600 metres, Ingrid Woodward from Flora Hill upstaged the backmarker Michael Preece to take out victory.
