Harbouring a winner

Gelding finds new lease of life in the north

CHAMPION Melbourne trainer David Hayes had lofty prospects for Sydney Harbour back in 2014 that would not have included a $7000 race at Innisfail Turf Club.

Sydney Harbour is a half brother to Charge Forward, who was trained by Mareeba’s John O’Shea and collected $1,232,985 over his career, including a Group 1 and two Group 2 wins in Sydney.

Hayes thought so much of the gelding, by Fastnet Rock from Sydney’s Dream, that he snapped him up before the horse was put out to sale for the general public.

Fast forward to the first month of 2018 and the now six-year-old has collected his third win in North Queensland for Wulguru trainer Joanna Hassett on Saturday afternoon at Pease Park.

Hassett has had the gelding for just over 12 months, with Saturday’s victory the horse’s fourth in the Benchmark 55 Handicap (1500m).

“Sydney Harbour is very well bred and I believe he did not even go through the sales,” Hassett said.

“They must have had a big opinion of him to keep him like that and then he won the one race for David Hayes.

“He made his way up north and I eventually bought him for $800. They would have had much bigger dreams for him than winning a Benchmark 55 at Innisfail (laughs), that is for sure.”

Townsville-based hoop Chelsea Jokic shot Sydney Harbour through the inside of the Pease Park straight to get the money in a photo finish with Bush Version, trained by Ralph Tate and ridden by Cairns hoop John Lambie.

“The horse needs to be ridden aggressively and Chelsea was more aggressive on him and made him realise he was a racehorse,” Hassett said.

“I think he enjoyed the sting out of the track, too.”

Earlier in the day at Innisfail, Tablelands jockey Wanderson D’Avila and Cannon Park trainer Alwyn Bailey grabbed early race-to-race doubles.

Racing in North Queensland turns to Mackay tomorrow before heading to Rockhampton on Thursday.

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