Ton in two years for Logan team
Wins by stable star Volkstok’n’barrell greatest thrill
The Donna Logan/Chris Gibbs training partnership passed a remarkable milestone at Ruakaka on Saturday. No, it’s not winning nine of the last 16 races run on their home track. Better. When Rockabyebaby won Race 6 on Saturday it was the 100th winner the partnership has recorded since linking two years ago.
That was recorded from 611 starters and includes 16 stakes winners, four at group one level.
“Yes, it’s been a great ride,” Logan told the Herald yesterday. “It sounds like we pay attention to statistics, but we don’t at all, my son Robert comes out with them. He’s not studying horse racing at university, but you’d think he was.”
Donna Logan said the two biggest thrills of those 100 winners was the wins by stable star Volkstok’n’barrell in the Haunui Stakes at Otaki and the Herbie Dyke at Te Rapa, both at group one. The Otaki race because the cousin of her late husband Dean, Doug is on the board of the Otaki Maori Racing Club.
“The Te Rapa win was special because we’d set him for it for six months and everyone had started to write him off. You feel good winning under those conditions.”
The stable has something of an opinion of Rockabyebaby, a filly by Rip Van Winkle from a mare by Fastnet Rock.
“She was looking for more ground than the 1200m she won over at the last meeting and the 1400m this time suited. She will go further as well.”
They also like early winner Dancing Light and juvenile victor Not Usual Trip, both of whom put the opposition away easily.
There were big expectations around last start winner Chasing Great in the last race, but the chopped out wet track worked again him.
“Troy [Harris] said he just went to pieces in the track conditions.” He is definitely one to follow.
Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin cannot win the Melbourne Cup after 23 attempts, pointing out that horse racing is a great leveller.
As much as the Logan/Gibbs is a huge influence with a large team, the major race on Saturday, the $30,000 ITM Whangarei Cup, was won by Smedley, who beat Kaharau and the two Logan Gibbs runners, Zafrenzy and Greencast.
Smedley’s trainer Clayton Stevenson has just five horses, only a couple of which the family does not have shares in. He trains on the beach near Waipu cove, a short drive south down the beach from the Logan/Gibbs base.
Smedley is a late bloomer, some- thing predicted by Clayton’s late father Dick Stevenson.
“Dad liked the horse when he was young and always said he would be a decent type as he aged.” Smedley is likely to be set for the Mitchelson Cup.
Under a desperate Johnathan Parkes ride last year’s Opunake Cup winner Longchamp made it back-toback titles with a gritty display at New Plymouth yesterday.
Parkes from a wide barrier draw sat three-wide on the pace throughout the 1400 metre contest before driving the Andrew Campbell trained galloper to the front as the field rounded the home turn.
Runner-up Nashville got the closest as he dived late to get within a neck of the winner with New York Minute and Taurus almost in a line with the first two in a desperate finish.
The disappointment was the warm favourite Art Deco who dropped away to finish in mid-field.