Verbal Kint’s glory at last
PERSEVERANCE finally paid off for hobby trainer Paul Hill and owner Maurice Tate when five-year-old gelding Roger Verbal Kint finally broke his maiden status in Devonport yesterday.
Roger Verbal Kint ($17) has been a work in progress ever since he started his racing career. In fact, Hill says the gelded son of West Quest has had attitude problems virtually from the day he was weaned off his mother (Southern Storm).
But yesterday he was on his best behaviour and attacked the line to score a narrow but game win in the Thai Imperial Latrobe Maiden over 1650m.
Hill said the gelding deserved the win because his form this preparation had been encouraging.
“When we first raced him on the synthetic we didn’t think he liked it but, this time in, he’s been really good and today he finally delivered what we’ve been waiting on for so long,” Hill said.
“He is a horse that has had his share of issues and in particular his attitude. But we’ve been patient, especially his owner Maurice Tate.
“The horse hadn’t been far away from winning at two of his past three starts and today everything panned out as we had hoped and it was a very good ride from Mehmet [Ulucinar].”
Tate had a lot of success with a sprinter-miler West Quest Boy (x West Quest) which was trained by the late Alan Stubbs. And Roger Verbal Kint is also by former top stallion West Quest which stood for many years at Graeme McCulloch’s Grenville Stud at Whitemore.
Roger Verbal Kint is named after an alias of Keyser Söze, a character from the 1995 movie The Usual Suspects, but the gelding’s breeding has no connection to the character.
The rising six-year-old has had only 14 starts, so there is no doubt connections have been very patient. LIMERICK CITY will head to the spelling paddock this week on a high after scoring an impressive all-the-way victory in the TAB Class 1 Handicap over 1009m.
The Cameron Thompsontrained gelding was having his 10th start this preparation and Thompson said the son of God’s Own deserved a break. “I’ve had this race in mind for a while, so we just needed to keep him fresh for it and it has all panned out as we expected,” Thompson said.
“He has done a marvellous job for a cheap horse and I’m sure he will appreciate the spell and hopefully come back and do it all again next prep.”
Limerick City was well rated by Anthony Darmanin who ensured a solid tempo and, when the challengers came in the home straight, the gelding had enough in hand to fend them off and score by a half-length.