Tough Maygrove’s Cup
THE old racing adage claims weight will stop a train.
Before Saturday’s Group III Counties Cup (2100m) at Pukekohe trainer Murray Baker reckoned the adage applied to his contestants Maygrove and Saint Emilion as they sat at the top of the handicap.
The tough geldings he trains with Andrew Forsman at Cambridge were lumped with 60kg in the $100,000 handicap, 1.5kg above the next highest weighted and 6kg more than those on the minimum.
‘‘It makes it tough for them,’’ Baker said pre-race. ‘‘They will run well but I don’t know if they can give away that much weight.’’
After leading for a good part of the race, Saint Emilion felt the pinch and faded to run ninth but Maygrove defied the odds to score an outstanding win.
He loomed up and hit the lead early in the long Pukekohe straight but was clearly headed by Promise To Reign (53kg) and Five To Midnight (57kg) levelled up to throw down his challenge.
An exciting battle developed between the trio but the class and fortitude that has carried Maygrove to eight previous wins again surfaced and he drove hard under the urgings of jockey Johnathan Parkes to grab win nine.
Five have come at stakes level including the Wellington Cup in 2015 and Awapuni Gold Cup last year.
‘‘He’s a good old warhorse and I’m sure there’s more to come,’’ Parkes said.
Matt Cameron’s initiative was the deciding factor in the favourite and Maygrove’s stablemate Mongolian Legend leading for the second half of the opening event on Cup day and racing away for TRISH DUNELL an easy win.
After a dawdling early pace when first Angel In Bluejeans and then Arite Guru became reluctant leaders, Cameron took the initiative in the Mount Shop 2400 as he sent Mongolian Legend around to lead and from was never headed after.
Baker had no immediate set plans for the winner five of his 15 starts but may consider the Waikato Cup.
The final of four black-type features on the programme turned into a great spectacle giving a taste of what is to come in the summer’s sprint races.
Fully Funded showed Maygrove wasn’t the only one who could carry topweight and win when he fought hard all the way up the straight to carry his 60kg to victory in the Listed Counties Bowl (1100m).
Ridden by Sam Spratt for Ardmore Lodge trainer Joanne Surgenor, the gelding was completing a hat-trick of wins after winning two before a spell.
He had two trials to prepare for his fresh-up run on Saturday and may have another before his main summer mission in the Group I Railway Stakes on New Year’s Day.
‘‘He’ll probably need one more run before then,’’Surgenor said. ‘‘Whether I go to the trials or what, I don’t know.
‘‘We’ll have to because he gets a bit over the top if you don’t do something with him.’’
Go Nicholas chased him home in the Bowl with Heroic Valour (third) and Ferrando (fourth) figuring in a close finish.