Grand idea to get votes
GRAND Syndicates racing manager Sam Lyons knew he had to come up with something from left field to gather votes for Man Of His Word in the All-Star Mile.
And what better way than to tell their data base of 1000 owners that if they voted for the former Gold Coasttrained horse, they could also be a part-owner on the day.
Lyons rang the 20 owners of Man Of His Word, who each had 5 per cent in the horse, and asked them if they were prepared to give up something to get the horse into the field.
“They said yes to each giving up a half a per cent of him on the day. As a result, two people who voted for him can
be owner on the day for the All-Star Mile.
“In essence we will have 22 owners of the horses with each owning 4.5 per cent.”
The scheme worked to a tee and Man Of His Word has been one of the leaders since voting opened. Yesterday he was fifth and also had the distinction of having the 100,000th vote on him.
Lyons thinks Man of His Word needs a few hundred more votes to secure one of the 10 public picks in the 14horse field for the $5 million 1600m race at Flemington on March 16.
He said he had a couple more ideas which he will use in the next few days to try to secure a start for Man Of His Word, who was trained by Grand Syndicates’ Gold Coast trainer Bruce Hill until early this season.
The six-year-old is now trained by Dean Krongold in Victoria.
Man Of His Word has the chance to impress more potential voters when he runs at Flemington on Saturday in the 1200m Benchmark 90.