Latest arrival gives stable Hardern edge
A PHONE call out of the blue from a north Queensland leviathan owner has handed Townsville trainer Michael Geaney a serious contender for the 2019 carnival.
Cairns’ Tom Hedley could not tell the Jensen horseman the name of his impending new stable arrival at first but Geaney could not hide his excitement when the Cairns Jockey Club president finally did – Hardern.
While most of Hedley’s horses head to the Tablelands with Roy Chillemi or Cannon Park with Stephen Massingham, the beaches of Townsville are the new home for Hardern.
“I am not sure how I got this horse, to be honest,” Geaney said earlier this week.
“I trained Profound Choice for him after carnival last year and somehow Tom rang me up five weeks ago and said ‘I have another 2000m horse, do you want to train him?’
“I obviously said we would take him on.
“The moment he told the name of the horse and I looked him up online, I thought this was the ideal horse for here.
“He is perfect, big, powerful and strong.
“I take my horses to the beach to work there a lot and we will do the same with him.”
Hardern comes to the north with an excellent career record, with six victories and a place in the Group 2 Alister Clark Stakes in 2016.
Geaney now has his eyes on winning back-to-back Townsville Cups after Hardern scored a sensational win in last month’s North Queensland Cup Open Handicap (1609m) at Cluden Park.
Before that, his task is the $150,000 Mackay Cup this afternoon, before likely tilts at the Cairns and Cairns Amateurs Cup following the Townsville Cup.
“When he got off the truck a few weeks ago, you could see he had a certain arrogance about him,” Geaney said.
“He had the attitude of ‘this is going to be my stable from now on’. “He owns the place now.” The gelding was previously in the yard of David Brideoake, who has three Group 1 winners to his name, at Mornington, with the former trainer often on the phone to Geaney to offer perspective and advice on the horse.
Experienced jockey Nathan Day took the ride on the chestnut in his first start in the north, with the plan to keep him as the pilot throughout the rest of the campaign.
Geaney believes if Hardern is in the top five in transit this afternoon, he will be very hard to beat over 2000m.
Meanwhile, Cairns-owned Monsieur Gustave will start in this afternoon’s $75,000 Mackay Newmarket.
Cairns jockey Michael Murphy will ride the top weights in both the feature races at Mackay today.