By Isaac Murphy
The bona fide middle-distance dogs will duke it out in Thursday night’s Listed Carnival Chase, but we may well have seen the fastest 600-metre chaser already this week at Albion Park, after Dave Richardson’s Barsandi carved out a 34.74-second victory on Monday night.
The performance was no fluke, a week earlier the bitch had made her debut at the trip scoring in 34.87 and has previously won over the 500 metres in 29.79.
“I’ve only got a small team but there’s plenty of advantages that come with that, I do all my own breeding and only race my own dogs,” Richardson said.
“You get an innate understanding of them and Barsandi has found her niche at 600 metres and possibly beyond.
“I’ve just built her up slowly over the sprint, there’s been some growing pains there but it’s all a part of the journey and a couple of weeks ago I knew - right age, right time.
“Some of those races over the 500 at Albion where she was drawing box eight, I knew she wasn’t going to win but it’d be key to her 600 success.
“I knew she was still going well testing the track record at Lismore on more than one occasion.”
It's the old adage to never back a dog first time over the 600 metres at Albion Park, and Barsandi was a big drifter on debut but defied the trend in romping home by eight lengths.
“Funnily enough I wasn’t all that concerned when she drew box seven for her first middle-distance race, she’d done the hard work over the sprint and dropping back to Monday night company I thought she could lead, and she flew out in 9.75,” Richardson said.
“All I was looking for in Monday’s run was a bit of improvement from the week before and she came out running again, this time going 9.73 early on her way to 34.74, she’s trending in the right direction.
“She’s proven she can run time from outside and inside draws, the only thing I’m kicking myself about is not putting her straight in the Listed 600-metre race (Carnival Chase) because she’s beating those dogs on the clock.”