Milestones beckon for Ballymore
Milestones beckon the good folk of Ballymore Stables as they and the rest of the racing fraternity head into the closing days of the 2015-16 racing season.
Last Sunday’s win at Te Aroha by the talented and very much untapped three-year- old Resurrect took Ballymore training partners Mike Moroney and Pam Gerard tantalisingly close to a couple of landmarks.
The season tally for Ballymore’s combined Matamata and Flemington stables now stands at 97 wins, while Pam Gerard’s personal career tally hit 99 with Resurrect’s win.
In just over a decade based in Canterbury, Pam prepared 91 winners before moving north with her partner Tommy Hazlett and taking an assistant trainer’s role at Matamata’s largest training operation, Te Akau.
In March she made the decision to renew her trainer’s licence and take over from Chad Ormsby as Mike Moroney’s Matamata-based partner. Now with eight wins from 46 starters over the past three months, she is on the verge of completing a century of wins in her own right.
‘‘I hadn’t been keeping tabs on my own tally, more listening to Mike and seeing what we could do at this end to get to 100,’’ Pam told the Chronicle after Sunday’s win. ’’I’d be happy to get my century but it would mean just as much if the stable was to get to 100 before the end of the season.
‘‘Mike and I both thought we had some good chances over the weekend but all we had to show for it before Resurrect won was a bunch of thirds. It was good to see Resurrect win though; we think a lot of him and he’s got a real future once he learns to be a racehorse.’’ Resurrect jumped as the $1.70 favourite on Sunday after an eye-catching fourth in his first start a month beforehand, but all those who backed him had an anxious time before he actually won.
Craig Grylls put him in the race from 1200-metre start point and all was looking good as Resurrect made the turn in front. He then proceeded to do everything he could to not win, veering out into the centre of the track and doing his best impression of a drunken sailor. Luckily Craig was able to gather Resurrect up over the final 100 metres and get him home by just over a length. The winning margin was remarkable given the wayward course by a young horse with it all in front of him.
Resurrect is raced in partnership by long-time Ballymore cli- ent Gerard Peterson’s G G Syndicate and Mike Moroney’s brother Paul, who found him in the 2014 Karaka Festival Sale catalogue and took him home for $13,000.
The Shinko King gelding’s close relationship to Ballymore’s 1997 VRC Derby winner Second Coming was an obvious attraction and continuing a biblical theme, led to him being named Resurrect. ’’He took us by surprise the way he ran around, but hopefully he’ll learn from the experience,’’
Pam Gerard added. ‘‘I’ve been talking to Mike and we’ll see how he comes out of this and then find him another race somewhere. It will all be about making him into a racehorse.’’ That next race won’t be until the new season. One more starter will line up from the Matamata stable before the current season ends on Sunday.