Ballarat trainer Darren Weir provided the quinella for the feature of the Melbourne Racing Club’s meeting at Caulfield on Saturday when three-year-old Strategic filly Platelet won narrowly over four-year-old Refuse To Bend mare Royal Bender in the $100,000, listed WFA Sir John Monash Stakes (1200m).

Platelet (56kg) under apprentice Damien Lane won by a half-head over Royal Bender (56.5kg) with Dean Yendall, with another three-year-old, Zamarar (58kg) (Scandal Keeper), back in third under Steven Arnold wit6.51. h the margin 1 1/2L.

The time was 1.06.79 on the Heavy 9 track with the final 600m in 36.51.

Despite winning its past two starts, Platelet started at double figure odds and paid $13.70 on STAB and $14.00 on TAB Sportsbet fixed odds.

All the money early in the week was for Second Effort, which firmed dramatically just prior to the start from $11 into $6.00. Second Effort however finished sixth,

Rue Maple also had good backing late in betting and was $13 into $6.50 but finished a distant 13th.

Backers of the Weir stable would have collected a $141 quinella and the First4 was $11,820.

The big dividends continued with the NSW BIG6 pool $709,754. A cross meeting BIG6 which took in the last three races from Caulfield and Warwick Farm, the legs were taken out by Platelet (Caulfield), Irish Dream, Slim Henry (Caulfield), Zakynthos Imprintz, Prince Of Capers (Caulfield) and Earnest Earnest.

A $50 outlay led to one retail customer collecting just $50,000 after snaring 6.94% of the $700,000 dividend.






Platelet gets up over stablemate Royal Bender, picture Turfpress