REGION - Last Friday night's Renown Silverware Ararat Cup win has rocketed Count De Lira up the leaderboard in the race for this seasons Melton Saddlery Victorian Country Cup Championship.
The four points the Matt Clarke-trained five year old picked up for his fast-finishing win in the first country cup of the new year took his season's tally to eight points in Country Cup Championship events.
The son of Beach Towel also finished second in both the Nyah and St Arnaud Cups earlier in the season, picking up two points for each of those efforts.
That places the Great Western gelding equal third on the standings for the competition that runs through until the last of Victoria's 25 country cups at Mildura on April 18 and carries $2500 worth of prizes.
Points are allocated on a 4-2-1 basis to the first three home in most races, except for the final cup of each month when 8-4-2 points are up for grabs.
The leader 11 races into the 2008/09 championship is the Geoff Webster-trained Mister Swinger, who has taken advantage of that double-points bonus.
A win at Cranbourne in the final cup of November and a third placing at Kilmore in the final feature of October, combined with Nyah Cup victory earlier that month, has the star five-year-old on 14 points.
That affords him a two-point advantage over stablemate Genuine Star, who zoomed up the chart with victory in the Jim Phillips Memorial Arrow Training Services Cobram Cup on December 28. He also finished second in feature events at Stawell and Yarra Valley.
Sharing the third line with Count De Lira are Kilmore Cup champion Bold Cruiser and Manwarra Goforgold, who finished runner-up to Bold Cruiser at Kilmore and Mister Swinger at Cranbourne.
The winner of the trotting feature at Ararat, the Jamie Madruga-trained My Missindependent, now also shares third spot on the Melton Saddlery Maori's Idol Trophy Series leaderboard thanks to her win.
The four points she collected placed her alongside Lenny Lewis, Save A Sixpence, Eringa Belle and Skyvalley in the competition that carries $2000 worth of prizes.
That quintet is just one point behind Sunny Elegant, while any one of them can join Mental Power (eight points) in the lead with victory at any of the impending races in the series.
Unlike the pacing series, which offers double points at the end of each month, the trotters event has a set points format of 4-2-1.
The next lot of points in both series will go on the line at Horsham this Sunday when the $50,000 Group 2 Wimmera Mail-Times Horsham Pacing Cup and $8000 Conch Deville Horsham Trotters Cup are run on a huge twilight fixture.
Melton Saddlery Championship: 14 Mister Swinger; 12 Genuine Star; 8 Bold Cruiser, Manwarra Goforgold, Count De Lira; 6 Ti Vogliobene, Few Good Men; 5 Keayang Hanover; 4 Tanabi Bromac, Thats Mister Ali, Im Mark Antony, Awesome Jasper.
Maori's Idol Trophy Series: 8 Mental Power; 5 Sunny Elegant; 4 Lenny Lewis, Save A Sixpence, Eringa Belle, Skyvalley, My Missindependent; 3 Thepowerofhealing, False Gem; 2 De Bruin Gold, Afriti, Calder Sensation.