Cream of the crop hardest to let go
IT’S going to be a lot quieter at Darryl Blackshaw’s Trafalgar East stables from Sunday, when the 14 horses he has cared for are returned to Peter Gelagotis at Moe.
The 67-year-old former butcher turned dairy farmer and part-time trainer admits it will be sad when the last of the horses leave his Gippsland property, especially Mourinho, who races in the Dato Tan Chin Nam Stakes (1600m) at Moonee Valley today.
Blackshaw came to the rescue of fellow Moe trainer Gelagotis, who received a three-month suspension in May for administering race- day treatment – an amino acid supplement – to Axis Point at Warrnambool on May 5.
When Gelagotis pondered what he was going to do with his horses, Blackshaw jokingly offered at trackwork one day to become caretaker trainer.
As the horse trucks rolled into Blackshaw’s 140ha dairy farm, now operated by his son Craig and his wife Kristie, he wondered what he had done.
Although he’d trained city winners in the past, in recent years he hadn’t had a heap of runners or winners – which is reflected in his 50 runners last season for two wins, five seconds and seven thirds.
One of those was Gelagotis’ Illustrious Lad, who won the Listed Creswick Stakes at Flemington in July to give Blackshaw his first blacktype win in a 40-year career.
So far this season, which started on August 1, Blackshaw has had 12 runners for four wins and two thirds, a winning strike rate of 36 per cent and a place percentage of 54.
“You couldn’t have dreamt we would have got as many winners as we’ve got,” he said.
While the Blackshaws have seven of their own horses, Mourinho gave him the biggest success of his career when he won his first start for him in last month’s Group 2 P.B. Lawrence Stakes at Caulfield.
The win took Mourinho’s career prizemoney past $1 million and put him on course for the Cox Plate, a race he was denied a run in last year by the Moonee Valley Racing Club’s discretionary powers.
The winner of the Dato Tan Chin Nam Stakes is exempt from the Cox Plate ballot in October.
Blackshaw would love to keep a perfect stakes record with Mourinho, but knows the gelding, which is drawn well in barrier three, will need everything to go right if he’s to figure in a race that features $1.80 favourite Contributer and cult horse The Cleaner.
“The favourite is the true favourite, and I watched the replay of last year’s race and Mourinho did a wonderful job to run second after travel- ling four or five wide the whole way,” he said. “He has drawn a barrier. It would be good to get out of two Group 2 races with two wins.
“We put our name on the line when we took the horses, because if we didn’t get a win, people would say we stuffed it up. When we took it on I was sweating for a week and worrying what people might think, but then I said, ‘Stuff what they think ...’”
It wasn’t only the horses that Blackshaw had to take care of for Gelagotis, he kept his staff, including right-hand man Gary Hollier, in work.
When Gelagotis’ horses depart, Blackshaw said he has room for another 14.
“With a few more suspensions, we might be full again,” he joked.