Bolting out of left-field
The Candy Man connection to shock All-Star Mile runner
Legendary Group 1 Stradbroke Handicap-winning trainer Barry Baldwin has revealed a quirky connection between shock All-Star Mile contender Puntura and former Queensland cult galloper The Candy Man.
Puntura has been trained in New Zealand in recent times but Baldwin, who retired aged 80 late last year, put the polish on the galloper in Brisbane in 2021 and 2022.
Baldwin, whose greatest moment was winning the 2006 Group 1 Stradbroke Handicap with three-year-old filly La Montagna, was also renowned for training popular grey The Candy Man.
The Candy Man was the back-fromthe-dead gelding who had his life saved in 2016 by a 10-hour surgical operation where he had seven steel plates and 56 screws inserted in his head to fix a horribly shattered broken jaw.
Puntura went to the same vet who saved The Candy Man for a unique wind operation which also put his racing career on track.
“The horse came over here for the Queensland carnival and he went pretty ordinary so the owners left him here with me,” Baldwin recalls.
“We discovered he had a wind problem and we sent him for an operation.
“The sort of wind operation he had at the time was a relatively new thing, they did it with the horse standing up.
“As the vet explained to me, if you operate on the horse standing up the horse is in his natural position and he said it would work a lot better.
“The horse’s form really transformed after he had the operation.
“We then sent Puntura back to New Zealand and he got very crook, he had colic, they thought he was going to die.
“Then they gave him a good spell and he’s a totally different horse these days.”
Puntura was a left-field selection for the All-Star Mile that no-one saw coming and the Robbie Patterson-trained six-year-old galloper is rated an $81 chance to spring an enormous racing boilover.
Two starts ago, Puntura won a Group 1 over a mile in New Zealand but would need to find many lengths to trouble the likes of Mr Brightside and Pride Of Jenni.
However, Baldwin always sensed he was a talented galloper who had Group level potential.
“I always thought this horse could have a good career, he had always shown ability,” Baldwin said.
“It has been good to see him fulfil some of his potential.
“The day he won the Group 1 in New Zealand (January 20) was the day I had my retirement party at Eagle Farm.
“You could hear the roar at Eagle Farm when he won because lots of my friends and (racing) clients backed him.”