Sprinter gamble pays off
UNDERRATED sprinter Bosporus looks set for his best season following an impressive first-up victory in an open handicap over 1200m in Launceston on Saturday night.
The Stephen Shaw-trained five-year-old had not started since April when unplaced in an open handicap won by class mare Speedonova.
Bosporus went into Saturday night’s event on the back of a game second in a trial at Longford behind speedy mare Gee Gee Queen Bee.
Rider Bulent Muhcu had Bosporus settled fourth in the small field of seven while Gee Gees Jet set the pace.
Bosporus powered home to win, holding out the fastfinishing Toorak Affair with Gee Gee Double Dee a closing third.
Shaw plans to take the gelded son of Elzaam to the next level this season, but to get into feature races the gelding needed to earn rating points to avoid being balloted out of the better races.
“It was very important that we had him fit enough to win first-up because his rating was only 73 and to get into good races that needs to be closer to 80,” Shaw said.
“We could have run in a benchmark 74 handicap on Wednesday, but he wouldn’t have got any rating points had he won that so we came to this race, which was a gamble, but it’s paid off.
“We’ll go to the Goodwood in three weeks because that seems the natural progression from here and then we’ll assess where he’s at.”
Muhcu said Bosporus had changed his life.
“I love everything about this horse and I am very confident he can win a very good race this time in,” Muhcu said.
“He is a very difficult horse to r i de because he is so arrogant, a bit like me. He is almost the reason why I have changed my attitude to riding.” ETHICAL DILEMMA proved on Saturday night that he is not just a synthetic specialist by scoring arguably his best win since joining the Peter Luttrell stable.
The former South Australian galloper settled just worse than midfield in a class-three handicap in which Gee Gee Bay Watch was the odds-on favourite at $1.95 and looked set to win at the top of the home straight.
But when Ethical Dilemma was asked to extend by Muhcu, the gelding joined the favourite and went on to defeat that horse by 1½ lengths.
“I was very confident this horse would be even better on the turf and he proved me right tonight,” Luttrell said after the victory.
Ethical Dilemma was the third leg of a treble for Muhcu, who also won aboard the wellbacked Trumpcash, which was sensationally backed in from $14 to $3.70.