Suspect tip turns to gold
THE spruikers — both authentic and impostors — were on the money as boom firststarter Barocha lived up to outrageous pre-race hype at Sale on Thursday.
Backed almost to the exclusion of his 13 rivals, Barocha ($1.70) strolled to a fivelength win for jockey-trainer Clayton Douglas and his girlfriend Jamie Kah to deliver a knockout blow for punters.
On Tuesday, a text message that went viral claimed Barocha had won a jumpout at Caulfield as a two-year-old for former Aquanita Racing trainer Tony Vasil before injury halted his progress.
“4yo 1st starter WILL win,” the unedited text read.
Jockey Jamie Mott was falsely quoted about Barocha’s talent with an incorrect anecdote about galloping with the smart galloper King Of Hastings also thrown in.
“Mott got off & said boys you’ve found one here,” the text read. Mott was later quoted elsewhere as saying he had never ridden the horse.
While Douglas’ sole prerace hope for Barocha is that “it’s not slaughtered by the girlfriend”, bookmakers were burnt badly by the avalanche of support for an unraced four-year-old.
TAB reported 84 per cent of its fixed market win pool was invested on Barocha, who opened at $6 before starting in the red, with a flood of four-figure bets.
The plunge featured an $8000 wager.
“It is extremely rare for any non-metropolitan race on a Thursday to carry the amount of interest that has occurred for race two at Sale today, but the majority of punters are celebrating Clayton Douglas’ first win as a trainer,” TAB’s Trent Langskaill said.
Sportsbet suffered a similar fate with wagers of up $5000 featuring in a plunge which saw the son of Ilovethiscity touch $1.65 before easing out to his starting price.
Watching his first-starter as a trainer from Mornington, Douglas was given not even the slightest worry as Kah parked Barocha off the pace before spearing into open territory in the straight and streaking away.
“Unbelievable, I’m just rapt,” he said. “Jamie (Kah) has done a really good job with this horse.
“He’s not really an easy horse (to ride) and she’s really educated him well … Yeah, there was a lot of hype over it. Look, I knew he was pretty good and so did Jamie. We did think he’d probably do that.”