Close up scores a dream win
RACE track dreams do come true.
Close Up’s win in the Group I Tarzino Trophy (1400m) at Saturday’s Daffodil Day meeting is living proof.
Cancer survivor Shelley Hale is a super talented horsewoman who lives for her horses.
She prepares her small team at Cambridge and shares the joy with the other light of her life, her son Matthew.
On Friday they were resigned to missing their chance at the $200,000 prize as Close Up languished on the ballot requiring a scratching to get a start.
The call came on Saturday morning that Stolen Dance had been scratched and they were on their way to Hastings for a shot at glory.
Into the mix came laconic veteran jockey Grant Cooksley known for many a year as ‘‘The Ice Man’’.
Cooksley has been Hale’s ‘‘go to’’ man in recent seasons and on Saturday he played a leading role in the loyal trainer’s dream result.
Never one to hog the limelight, Cooksley deflected the attention to Hale but his part in making the racing Group I dream a reality couldn’t be as understated as the man in the saddle.
While other more favoured runners were battling slow starts, interference and an unsuitable wet track, Cooksley had Close Up humming along out of trouble and poised to pounce.
‘‘He was travelling very nicely,’’ Cooksley said. ‘‘It was just a matter of keeping him going.’’
Last season Hale and Cooksley won the Group II Easter Stakes with Close Up’s half-brother Seventh Up and lamented the fact that the former Group I had been downgraded.
Little did Hale know an elite win was just months away.
‘‘I’m one of those trainers who do it because I love it,’’ she said on Saturday. ‘‘This is just incredibly special.
‘‘This little horse can’t run through the summer, his joints just can’t hack it. I plotted a path through the winter hoping to get to a race like this - it was just a dream.
‘‘So for it all to fall into place, it’s magical.’’
Having Matthew as strapper was another element to a great day.
‘‘It’s incredibly special, it’s just magic.’’
For a long time Matthew avoided the races because he reckoned he was a hoodoo. A Group II and now a Group I win have laid that to rest.
Seventh Up and Close Up and their siblings are progeny of the mare Regelle who has made a serious mark for Hale and co-breeders and co-owners Robin Stent and the Noel and Alison Johnstone Family Trust.
Seven of the mare’s eight foals have won and include Thumbs Up, a Group II winner and Group I placegetter after his sale to Hong Kong, and Sum Up.
Hale’s voice wavers when she reveals Regelle passed away several months ago. ‘‘That makes it more special.’’ The Tarzino Trophy had everything to make a Group I starting with unpredictable weather producing a slow surface for the season’s first elite race.
There were major betting moves, Gingernuts being one backed heavily, there was interference, suspensions, unlucky runners but there can be just one winner and Hale will be back in the bay for the next Group I the Windsor Park Plate (1600) in three weeks.
Runner-up Aide Memoire, third placed Under the moonlight with jockey Cameron Lammas given a suspension, followed home by Kawi, Gingernuts and Volpe Veloce all likely opposition.
SOPHIE’S Choice couldn’t produce a dream result but she did her late partowner proud on Saturday.
Hawke’s Bay Racing paid tribute to the late Sir Colin Meads when they ran race five on the card the El Roca - Sir Colin Meads Trophy, in honour of the number the great man wore many times for the All Blacks.
Taking her place in the field boasting some of the best 3-year-old gallopers in commission was the filly wearing saddlecloth five who won a race for Meads a few days before his recent death.
Meads had been battling pancreatic cancer and Saturday’s races supported a Daffodil Day initiative raising funds for the Cancer Society.
The great All Black loved his horses and shared many wins as a member of syndicates largely with Albert Bosma’s Go Racing Syndication company which races Sophie’s Choice.
The tough little Darci Brahma filly carrying any number of sentimental bets, did her best for jockey Danielle Johnson adorned in the Cancer Society colours but she had to bow to several class gallopers in the keenly contested event.
The $50,000 Listed sprint fell to rising star Bostonian one of two in the race for Cambridge trainer Tony Pike.
Pike generously pledged 50 per cent of any training commissions on the day to the Daffodil Day initiative which received a sizeable boost from Bostonian’s success.
‘‘It’s a great cause and great that the racing industry gets behind it,’’ Pike said.
In recent times the popular trainer’s life and that of his family has been touched by cancer with his father Wayne currently fighting and receiving treatment for the disease.
True to the script on a special day Bostonian got up in the last stride to beat I Got You in an exciting finish with Irish Flame flashing into third ahead of favourite Getty with the gallant Sophie’s Choice looming large before fading to seventh.
Getty had $10,000 bet on him close to the jump.
‘‘He’s a real, genuine racehorse,’’ Pike said. ‘‘He has a will to win and it was a good, tough win today and he can only improve - it’s onwards and upwards.’’
Pike said his second representative Sacred Rebel didn’t handle the wet track.
‘‘We’ll get them home and map out programmes for them from there,’’ he said. ‘‘We have lots of options.’’
Jockey Leith Innes was high in his praise of Pike’s training skills.
‘‘It was a good training effort,’’ he said. ‘‘The horse hadn’t had a trial [last start was in April] and he fought well to the line.’’
Earlier on the card locally-trained Wait A Sec ridden by Lisa Allpress earned a crack at bigger things with his win over 1600m in his first run since July 1.
The Guy Lowry and Grant Cullen stable runner will be prepared for the open 2000m on the middle day of the Hawke’s Bay then the Group I Livamol Classic (2000m) on the third day before taking on the New Zealand Cup (3200m) in November.
Another winner, Francaletta will also go on to black-type races after taking the Telperion Trophy (1200m) under jockey Michael Coleman.
‘‘With the cut in the track she can win a Group I,’’ Coleman said.
The mare has a booking to top sire Savabeel but that may be put on hold.