Courtesy GRAQ website


QUEEN Lauryn, coming off a track record public trial over 431m at Ipswich on Thursday morning, will head to Sandown next Thursday night for a trial. She ran 24.68 in the public trial which is easily inside Reliability’s track record.

Trainer Tony Brett said the plans to give the Token Prince-Cheeky Sprite bitch a look at Sandown was for the major races coming up there later in the year. “All the big races including the Topgun and Sapphire Classic, are at Sandown this year and I’d like to give her a look at the track well in advance of that,” said Brett. He will then take her back to run her in a race on Thursday week, the night of the Group 1 Laurels final. “Steve (Hawkins, her owner) sponsors the Laurels and it will be great to have her racing on that night,” said Brett.

Brett gave Queen Lauryn, who four runs back smashed the Wentworth Park 520m track record, a spell after being second to Miss Hot Gossip in two FFA runs at Albion Park recently. “She had a good week off and it has done her the world of good,” he said.

“She will come back from Sandown to run in the heats of the Winter Carnival Cup at Albion Park. “After those runs behind Miss Hot Gossip, I just wanted to take her away from Albion Park for a while.”

Hawkins' commitments in coming weeks have forced him to miss a trip to the Darwin Cup. He recently bought Deep Prince, a winner at Albion Park last Thursday night for him, and gave the dog to Tom Tzouvelis to train. "The reason he bought the dog was so he could have a week in Darwin with his mates and see his dog race in the Cup series," said Tzouvelis. "He'd just about made all the bookings, and organised all his mates, but now can't go at all because of work commitments."