Byrne confident he can sit and fire again
JOCKEY Jim Byrne will not mind if history repeats and he has to sit behind another Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott-trained runner in Saturday’s Group 1 Golden Rose on a dappled up Rothfire.
Byrne let Farnan take the early ascendancy in a welldocumented Run To The Rose play and can see Waterhouse and Bott-trained stablemate Yardstick giving him a cart across into this week’s $1m contest at Rosehill.
“It’s always good to draw under them, but I’m coming out with the same intention as previously,” Byrne said. “We will roll forward. “Yardstick has good speed, it’s drawn directly underneath me and, if it leads, that’s my perfect scenario.”
Byrne has maintained for some time Rothfire will be at his best at 1400m, especially sitting off them, as he did in June’s J.J. Atkins at Eagle Farm.
“That’s how we work him now,” he said.
“We sit behind another runner and as soon as you ask him to engage in the gallop, it’s all business and it’s business right through the line.”
Byrne has ridden Rothfire twice since the Run To The Rose and said the Rob Heathcote-trained gelding was thriving in Sydney, both visually and physically.
“He looks great to me,” he said. “You can really see the dapples in his coat, they have really come out. I couldn’t be happier with the way he’s come on since.
“Tuesday’s work was meant to be a nice blowout and that’s just how it turned out.
“I’m not taking any of these horses lightly.
“You have to respect them and I do that.
“I go into the race confident I have the exact same horse underneath me and he will be a better horse having the (first-up) run under his belt.”
Rothfire is into $1.95 with Ladbrokes to win the Golden Rose, and is an equal second
favourite for The Everest on October 17.
Byrne said he was a little bored in Sydney away from his family but he was happy not taking many extra rides so he could focus his whole attention on Rothfire.
NSW’s appeal system doesn’t allow the flexibility of Queensland’s so the last thing he wants is a suspension incurred on another horse.
“He’s the reason I’m down here and I’m happy devoting my energies to him,” he said of Rothfire.