Castle the king over shorter distances

New Zealand speedster Jordan Castle showed his liking for the shorter carnival races at Burnie on Monday, taking out two of the support races.

King of the Castle: New Zealand's Jordan Castle celebrates hard after taking out the 1000m handicap final at the Burnie Carnival on Monday. Picture: Cordell Richardson.

The 21-year-old showed no mercy on the field in the men’s 1000-metre handicap, scorching the field on the final lap to defeat Ryan Lawson and Oscar Varney.

He backed up 40 minutes later in his favoured keirin event, demolishing a class field over the final 200m sprint.

South Australian 18-year-old Jarrad Drizners showed he could be a star of the future after triumphing in the men’s 2000m handicap.

Drizners burst away from the pack on the final lap and held on to defeat USA rider Zach Kovalcik and New Zealand’s Thomas Garbutt.

After his win in the Burnie Wheel, Sam Welsford could have been excused for taking it easy in the 18-lap A Grade scratch race to end the night.

But the Western Australian knows nothing else but flat out, completing the clean sweep of carnival scratch races ahead of Nick Yallouris and Stephen Hall.

The other scratch races were taken out by Grant Viney (D Grade), Simon Price (C Grade) and Jordan Matthews (B Grade).

In the women’s program, the short and sharp 1000m handicap final gave the backmarkers no chance of winning.

Queensland’s Gabrielle Thomasz claimed the title ahead of women’s wheel winner Maeve Moroney-Plouffe and Hobart’s Suzanne Strates.

New Zealand’s Olivia Podmore took out the women’s keirin final with Bree Hargrave and Amy cure filling the minor placings.

Cure had one win for the day, collecting the A Grade scratch race, while Amalia Langham was first over the line in B Grade.

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