Brunton short of a ton

PREMIER trainer Scot Brunton may have been denied a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to train 100 winners in a season as a result of the abandonment of the last six races at Elwick on Sunday.

Brunton went into the penultimate meeting of the season on 95 wins and on paper had six legitimate favourites on the eight-event card.

He prepared the first winner, first-starter Shot Of Irish, backed in to start the $1.90 favourite, and the gelding did it in style, winning by eight lengths with David Pires aboard.

It was the start Brunton was looking for.

But when the meeting was abandoned after race two the trainer was left four short of the century and bemused over what led to three-quarters of the meeting being abandoned.

“Sure, I was keen for the meeting to be played out because I knew I had some serious winning chances in most of the races. But what led to the abandonment was a joke,” Brunton said.

Before the opening race jockeys had raised concerns with stewards over the state of the track, with a section between the 900m and 800m appearing to be waterlogged.

It was not so much the texture of the surface that bugged the riders but that a fast-lane existed along the outside fence that could accommodate one horse only. In the jockeys’ opinion it was an unfair advantage and also a safety issue.

Visiting interstate rider Anthony Darmanin consulted other senior riders and, as spokesman for the jockeys, told stewards they had agreed not to ride along the fast lane on the outside of the suspect piece of ground.

The first race was run and all jockeys abided by the “gentlemen’s agreement”.

But in the second race, Bulent Muhcu, ignored the pact and sent his mount Odessa Lad ($7) straight to the fast lane, on which he gained a decisive advantage and went on to win comfortably.

Immediately after the race, Darmanin, speaking on behalf of the remaining senior riders, told stewards that under the circumstances the track had become unsafe and stewards had no alternative but to call off the meeting.

There could be no protest lodged because the rider was not in breach of any official rule of racing, so stewards were effectively rendered helpless over the rider’s decision to defy the pact.

“I argued with Anthony [Darmanin] in the mounting yard before the first race was run that what they [jockeys] were doing was, in some way, unlawful. But my argument fell on deaf ears,” Brunton said.

“For years the Hobart track has favoured horses in outside gates over the shorter trips when the track’s been rated heavy and that was no different to any other heavy track we’ve raced on in Hobart this season.

“If the track was unsafe then the riders should have just stood their ground and let the stewards do their job instead of coming up with some ridiculous alternative.

“Then, to top it off, we had the meeting abandoned and not postponed, so we couldn’t re-run the six races in Hobart later this week.”

Brunton will take 11 horses to Devonport on Sunday to try to secure the four winners he needs to snare the century of wins.

“If I get two winners on Sunday — and that’s probably the best I can do — then that will give me 98 winners in Tassie and I’ve trained two winners in Melbourne so that will give me 100 in Australia,” he said.

“If that happens I’ll take a photo of the final tally and hang that on my wall, but to get this close to 100 in your own state and be denied because of what happened is a very hard pill to swallow.”