Peerless Pike ticks off more black type
William Pike capped off a memorable AHA Cup meeting at Bunbury, riding the last three winners including Tick Tick Bloom in the feature, to give trainer Adam Durrant a strong hand in Thursday week's $120,000 Bunbury Cup (2200m).
The white-hot hoop, who rode a stakes double at Ascot on Saturday, gave Alana Williams a win with her first runner as a trainer on Chocolate Moon in the seventh race. He then won the AHA Cup before riding Halo Express to victory in the last race for Williams' husband, Grant.
Tick Tick Bloom, a winner of last year's Belmont Guineas and Belmont Oaks, was suited by Global Flirt setting a strong pace and Kirov Boy's mid-race move to sit outside the leader.
She warmed to her work down the outside of the field in the straight to edge out Cyber Crime and Senhor Da Gama in the 2019m Listed race.
"The fast pace did suit the backmarkers and the faster they went the better I liked it," said Durrant's stable foreman Jason Miller.
"It played into her hands.
"She will be our main hope for the Bunbury Cup, with Ora Dare and Dragonlead maybe chances to run."
Punters backed the four-year-old mare from $2.30 into $2.10 to avenge her shock defeat as an odds-on favourite over 1690m at Bunbury at her previous run.
Meanwhile, Bunbury trainer Mark Bairstow will bypass the Bunbury Cup with Saturday's Esperance Cup (2020m) winner Toned.
Bairstow will use the $35,000 Mt Barker Cup (2000m) on March 15 as a lead-up to the $120,000 Pinjarra Cup (2300m) a fortnight later.
"He loves Pinjarra," Bairstow said.
"He doesn't seem to like the longer grass at Bunbury for some reason."
Toned finished 12th of 13 in the 2013 Bunbury Cup, but ran third in last year's Pinjarra Cup. He has a win, two seconds and two thirds in seven starts at Pinjarra.
·Victorian Brad Rawiller will spearhead a team of interstate jockeys to compete against WA riders at the State Of Origin jockeys' challenge on Bunbury Cup day. Rawiller, Noel Callow, Jay Ford, Jason Taylor, David Pires and Brendon Davis are the interstate riders. William Pike, Glenn Smith and Kyra Yuill will make up the WA team.
