The Sunday News
Mandla Moyo, Sports Reporter
AS part of preparations for the upcoming Fillies Classic Race set for running on 10 February at Borrowdale Racecourse, Mashonaland Turf Club have pushed out a final list of five equines to canter over 1600m for the winners prize.
From the $8 000 purse the winner will walk away $4 800 better off while the first runner up will get $1 600 leaving the next two runners up to collect prize monies of $1 000 and $600 respectively.
Trainer Bridget Stidolph has three acceptances while Kirk Swanson and Penny Fisher have a runner each to make it a total of five horses.
Mia Finola, an impressive runner last year over a sprint distance ranging from 1450m to 1600m is the highest merit rated entry at 81 from the yard of Stidolph.
Two more runners unleashed by Stidolph are Born to Shine the second highest merit rated horse at 70 and Missy Franklin rated 60.
Bouble Dab by Fisher is rated 58 while Ineffable by Kirk Swanson completes the list with the least merit rating of 45.
According to MTC racing manager Betina Gurajena, efforts are currently underway to make sure the race card is available before the end of the week.
There was also interesting news from Kenya where local jockey Brendon McNaughton on Sunday rode two winners on the Britam card to win the International Jockey Challenge competition.
According to online news reports, this win makes it an International Jockey Challenge hat-trick for both McNaughton and Zimbabwe a rare achievement by a local jockey and a country to date in this race meeting.
Meanwhile last Saturday, MTC and Mashonaland Owners Trainers Association members engaged in a hole hunt on the track as part of maintenance.
A number of holes were identified and filled in the process in an effort to make the track safe for racing for both the pilots and the equines.
