Racing: Terror To Love too strong

Terror To Love beats Christen Me in the Cranbourne Cup on Saturday night. Photo / Stuart McCormick

A pre-race instruction to declare war on Christen Me gave Terror To Love his first Australian win after a classic Cranbourne Cup on Saturday night.

Terror To Love landed some huge bets by sitting parked outside his arch rival for the last 1200m of the A$100,000 group one and outstaying him in a race that had a tinge of Bonecrusher-Waverley Star about it.

Christen Me had led easily early but Ricky May launched his attack at the 1200m, not just racing up to sit parked but eyeballing his fellow Canterbury pacer.

At the 400m, Terror To Love looked to be going clearly the better, but 200m later Christen Me made his last surge and put a length on him. However, when Terror To Love should have cried enough he showed the level of courage that has won him three New Zealand Cups.

He lunged again to land his all-important first Australian win in nine starts by a head, earning valuable respect across the Tasman, the pair 20m clear of their rivals.

"That is how I told Ricky to drive him," said co-trainer Graham Court.

"I knew if we let Christen Me dawdle around in front then he would have too much speed.

"So I told Rick to give it to em and he did it perfectly. Don't get me wrong, Christen Me is a great horse but we believed sometimes he doesn't find a great deal under pressure."

Terror To Love will now take on Beautide in this Saturday's Ballarat Cup, the draw for which tomorrow will be crucial.

"Then we will go home and come back for either the Victoria Cup [January 31], the Hunter Cup [February 7] or both.

"But we might not go to both of them, though, because the Interdom heats are a week after and the final two weeks after that.

"We are thrilled to get this win under our belt and for people over here to see how good he is."

The win will go down as one of the greatest of Terror To Love's career and only the second time after his incredible New Zealand Cup win last year he has clearly outpointed Christen Me with no excuses for either.

The latter's driver Dexter Dunn summed it up: "We were beaten by a better horse on the night".

Earlier, Keysone Del, part-owned in Waikato, made it 10 wins on end in the A$50,000 Bill Collins Mile.