Castle Warrior On Track For Historic Cup Double

CASTLE Warrior, coming off a Group 2 Bulli Gold Cup victory, on Sunday night ran the quickest of four heats of the Temora Cup and trainer Mark Wilcox believes the final will be harder to win than at Bulli.

Castle Warrior (Fernando Bale-Shesa Felon) ran 25.70 when scoring by six lengths as the $1.40 favourite in the opening of four heats of the Temora Cup (457m).

He downed former Tassie youngster Sacred Stance, now in the Jodie Lord kennel, after beginning like a rocket from his wide draw.

Next Sunday's Cup final is worth $15,000 to the winner and has come up with a special line up.

The field (NOT in box draw) is: Castle Warrior, Sacred Stance, Ferdinand Boy, Subtle Art, Irinka Riley, Sonny Daze, She's A Pearl and Impress Dressel.

“Wow,” said Wilcox. “That is a hard final. The Victorian dog (Ferdinand Boy) and Lordy's dog (She's A Pearl) will be very hard to beat.

“I'd like my bloke to be drawn wide so he can stay out of trouble and get a good run at them early.

“But, the loud lure at Temora is great for getting dogs to begin and there is a lot of pace in this final.”

Wilcox had planned to run Castle Warrior in a top grade at Maitland in a lead-up to the Maitland Gold Cup series coming up.

She's A Pearl has bolted in at @Temoragreys in her heat of the @ladbrokescomau #TemoraCup in 25.74!

Castle Warrior won the opening heat in the fastest time – 25.70.

Who is your pick in the final next week? Watch both heats below.

Results: https://t.co/qucwzJPWlC#thedogs pic.twitter.com/RHk0maNmx4

— The Dogs (@Thedogs_com_au) February 27, 2022

“But, there was no race for him, so I went with this series,” he said.

“After the Temora final, he will go straight into the heats of the Maitland Cup a week later.

“He has won a couple already at Temora so it ended up being a good option.

“And he pulled up so well from the Bulli Cup win.”

Ferdinand Boy, already the winner of the Shepparton, Ballarat and Healesville Cups, was sensational in his heat winning in 25.81 as the $1.25 favourite.

He scored by two lengths to take his career to 70 starts for 38 wins.

Jodie Lord will have two finalists, Sacred Stance and the current kennel star She's A Pearl (Aston Dee Bee-Shez Impetuous) who has been in fabulous form winning 10 of her past 11.

She ran 25.79 to score by three and a half lengths over Impress Dressel.

The early favourite for the Million Dollar Chase, she was coming off a 29.46 win at Wentworth Park.