Londonderry trainer Luke Azzopardi is confident his promising youngster Fuego can continue the perfect start to his career in Thursday evening’s Multicam Routing Systems Future Stars Final (400 metres) at Maitland.
Fuego, a December ’07 son of Bond and Simply Pettigo, faced the starter for the first time when winning his Future Stars heat in 22.73 and he then improved significantly on the clock to be the fastest of last Thursday’s four semi-final winners.
Fuego made it two from two when leading all-the-way to claim his semi in a slick 22.37, with the other run-offs won by Webbie’s Star (22.46), Obama Star (22.58) and Starburst Stumpy (22.81).
Like Fuego, Webbie’s Star and Starburst Stumpy are both undefeated in the Maitland series, while Obama Star ran second in Fuego’s heat before winning his semi.
Fuego has drawn box three for the $7,000 to the winner Future Stars decider with the astute Azzopardi understandably upbeat about his charge’s prospects.
“If he doesn’t get into trouble I think he should just about win,” Azzopardi said.
“He’s very green at the moment but he’ll just keep improving and he’s going to be a handy dog.
“I was setting him for this series but he hurt a ligament a few weeks before the heats and I wasn’t going to start him. But I trialled him up the straight against one of Christine Oldfield’s dogs, which she said goes alright, and they finished together in good time so I decided to put him in.
“His run in the heat was enormous – don’t take any notice of the time because all he wanted to do was run off the track.
“He did everything wrong the first week but he improved the next week and he’ll just keep improving. His middle section is sensational and he’ll go straight from box three, but you know what pups are like – they run all over the place – so he just needs to stay out of trouble. He’s not a certainty but I think he’ll be hard to beat.”
The Future Stars Final will be run at 6.24pm.
Meanwhile, Azzopardi has had to abandon plans to tackle Sunday’s heats of the Group Two Lismore Cup with Uncle Bully after the talented sprinter was injured at Wentworth Park last Saturday night.