RISING COCO raised the roof for her legion of supporters with a storming 50-1 success in the semi-finals of the Jay & Kay Coach Tours Kent St Leger at Crayford on Saturday and will form part of a strong local challenge for the £10,000-to-the-winner event at the Kent venue this weekend.

The Jim Reynolds-trained runner, an October 2018 daughter of Kinloch Brae and Old Fort Dakota, has notched all her 16 career wins at Crayford with wins over four, six and eight bends at the track – including making the final of the Peter Bussey Memorial Trophy, another Category One competition at Crayford, over 540m in February.

Lining up in the first semi-final against Golden Jacket champion Bellmore Sally (Jimmy Fenwick), who went off the red-hot favourite, a fast start from Reynolds’ charge secured a first-bend lead and the three-year-old was was never headed before scoring by two and a three-quarter lengths from the always-handy in 45.45sec (normal).

However, that was not the end of the story for this first semi-final of the Kent St Leger as Kishlawn Shakira (David Mullins) and Blueberry Bullet dead-heated for the third qualifying position, before the latter went through on a toss of a coin giving champion trainer Mark Wallis two chances in the eight-bend decider.

Wallis’s Bombardier maintained his unbeaten record in the second semi-final as the recent Trainers Judgement Night winner at Monmore produced an even more impressive victory than his heat success when coming from off the pace to score.

Led from the boxes by Bettys Book (Kevin Boon), the latter maintained the advantage for much of the contest until the strong-running Bombardier hit the front off the last bend before going on to claim victory by two and a three-quarter lengths from the staying on pair of Burgess Elite (John Mullins) and Burgess Hannah (Tony Gifkins), who just denied the game Bettys Book a place in the final. The winning time was 45.74sec.

On his two finalists, Mark Wallis said: “We’re delighted to have the chance to defend the title after Bo Shine Bullet won for us last year – we also won it with Antigua Fire in 2019.

“It’s great to have two chances and both Bombardier and Blueberry Bullet are real favourites at the kennel. We had the luck on our side in the coin toss against Kelly (Gutteridge, David Mullins’ kennelhand) which means Blueberry Bullet is in another Cat One final. She’s got a great record and won the George Ing St Leger.

“Bombardier ran well for us at Monmore. He was our joker for double points on Judgement Night and didn’t let us down and then has won both heat and semi-final at Crayford, showing he can do it from the front or the back. Ideally I’d like to see both pretty handy – Bombardier can break well and sometimes Blueberry Bullet comes away.

“Once again it’s a great card to look forward to at Crayford on Saturday morning and well done to the sponsor Karl Brazier for backing the competition again. It’s been some week given we had the GBGB Awards on Sunday and it’s the Derby starting on Thursday, but it’s these events which we work for and we’re looking forward to them.”

Trap draw and form for Saturday’s Jay & Kay Coach Tours Kent St Leger Final: https://assets.cj1.in/imminent-otter/production/assets/results/Crayford/form-guides/Crayford-Saturday-Morning-21st-May-2022-Open-Finals-Form.pdf