Lawrie Fownes foiled a treble for the Tony Cruz-Felix Coetzee combination and unveiled a good stayer in the making when Flight Of Fancy took the sixth event over 1,650 metres last night.
'He was bit fresh tonight but he had to be to win at 1,650m, and the cut in the track tonight certainly helped him too,' said Casper Fownes, assistant trainer to his father. 'But there are much better things to come from this fellow when he gets up to longer distances.'
Flight Of Fancy had won just one race before last night but has shown himself able to handle trips up to 2,400 metres and Fownes is confident that is where his future lies.
Coetzee and Cruz had narrowly won the previous race with Non Sequitur and subsequently took the final race with Supreme Cat, but Chocolate Tycoon had no answer to Flight Of Fancy when the pressure went on with 100 metres to run.
'Wendyll [Woods] had Flight Of Fancy close tonight, which was the right place to be in the conditions and once he was so close, he was going to be very strong at the finish of a mile,' said Fownes. 'He has only won the one race but at times he has suffered from having a fairly sensitive mouth. He's a four-year-old now and starting to mature as a racehorse.'
Cruz said there was nothing special to tell about his brace of winners. 'Just horses who found the right race on the right night,' he said.