Invercargill Cup to Orepuki Lad
Palmerston North jockey Dylan Turner has his partner Leah Hemi to thank for the success he had in Saturday’s Invercargill Cup.
Turner rode the winner Orepuki Lad, whom Hemi had ridden to victory a fortnight earlier in the Dunedin Cup.
Hemi couldn’t ride Orepuki Lad on Saturday because she was riding in Auckland. She told Turner that Orepuki Lad would be a good ride in the Invercargill Cup.
He wasted no time in arranging for his agent, Andre Neill, to contact the horse’s co-trainer, Graham Eade.
Eade and son Michael train at the Riverton racecourse. In 2017, Hemi won the Dunedin and Invercargill Cups on the Eade-trained La Nouvelle Vague.
Graham Eade said he was reasonably confident with Orepuki Lad going into Saturday’s race.
His confidence grew 500 metres from the finish when Orepuki Lad galloped clear of his closest rival, eventually winning by nearly eight lengths.
Turner said Orepuki Lad raced keenly in the early stages.
‘‘I thought going past the 1400 [metres] if he kept over racing, he’ll die in a hole, but three strides later he settled.’’
Orepuki Lad is owned by the 10-member Deep Ten Syndicate and for seven of them, he is their first racehorse.
The owners live in Riverton, Tuatapere, Orepuki, Invercargill, the Waikato and Queensland. Syndicate manager Cecil Ferguson, of Orepuki, bred the horse and organised the syndicate to race him.
‘‘I bred his mother . . . she had three starts and broke down,’’ Ferguson said.
Meanwhile Turner, on his first visit to Invercargill, also had wins on Weaponry (Southland Guineas) and Riviera Rock at the Southland Racing Club’s meeting.