By L Cunningham

Late on Saturday evening, as already announced, Malta’s champion harness driver Noel Baldacchino represented our country in the second leg of the Mediterranean Championship for harness drivers.

Unfortunately, the mare driven by Baldacchino was not up to par with the other competing horses and although he tried his best in the circumstances, he was all the time tailing the other competitors. The eventual winner was Italian Matteo di Meo with the horse Merico.

Although there were eight drivers in the race only 5 were competing in the Mediterranean championship and with the early disqualification of Russian Alexander Popov, Noel classified in fourth place after French Jean Paul Fasquelle was second and Slovenian Gojanc third.

The race can be viewed on the internet web page www.gaet.it

The full result was as follows:

1. Merico (Matteo di Meo) Italy – 1’17”3

2. Olding As (Francesco La Rosa Jr.) – 1’17”4

3. Mclaren UR (Cesare Ferranti) – 1’17”8

4. Naivasha (Jean Paul Fasquelle) France – 1’18”2

5. Osiris Joy (L. Gorjanc) Slovenia – 1’18”5

6. Ieper (Salvatore D’Aluisi) – 1’18”7

7. Novi Ligure (Noel Baldacchino) Malta – 1’18”9

Dis Gadoni (Alexander Popov) Russia