Wheeler’s patience turns any doubts into a Wai Not
IT WAS only a $10,000 maiden race but Wai Not’s brave hurdle success at Ellerslie yesterday rewarded a bunch of enthusiastic jumps owners for bouncing back from a cruel loss.
The last time John Wheeler’s big team of owners raised their champagne glasses together was at Warrnambool in Victoria 16 months ago after their horse Banna Strand won the $320,000 Grand Annual Steeples.
When the horse knocked a leg slightly Wheeler suggested they put him away for a spell and aim to win the big jumps feature again this year.
But disaster struck and when Wheeler went to check on the horse one day he found him dead, victim of a suspected twisted bowel.
You could have forgiven the team for packing it in but instead they set about finding another one and when syndicate member Dennis Ryan had the choice between two horses at Glenn Old’s Matamata stable, he chose ‘‘the chestnut one’’.
Wai Not’s owner Eion Kemp kept a share and was joined by Wheeler, Ryan, Bruce and Michelle McLuckie and New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing chief executive Greg Purcell, his three daughters Kate, Emily and Sarah and partner Essence D’Espoir.
Wai Not had been over a few pony hurdles before but it was Wheeler who really taught him the ropes and, as luck would have it, Wai Not really took to the role.
His win yesterday was at his fifth start over hurdles and sixth in all as a jumper.
‘‘ He’s a lovely, careful jumper,’’ Wheeler said. ‘‘And I think he’s going to be a pretty good horse.’’
‘‘ He raced a bit fiercely in Christchurch [two hurdle races over 3200m for a second and third] but I told Isaac [Lupton] to drop out today and get him off the bit and he rode him super.’’
Wheeler’s concerns that the track might be too heavy for the son of Riviera came to nought as he outmuscled the favourite Noah Jon to win by one and a half lengths.
‘‘I may put him in a maiden ‘ chase next and assess things from there,’’ Wheeler said.
‘‘I want to keep my options open if he’s good enough to take to Aussie, which I hope he is.’’
Ryan said he and his fellow owners would love nothing better.
‘‘We bought him to replace Banna and wouldn’t it be great if he could win the same race.’’
Those headlines would be preferable to ones which Banna Strand made a couple of years earlier when after being brought down, he careered riderless, clearing a near nine foot partition fence into a section of the crowd, hospitalising nine people.
Ryan will make sure he’s at Warnambool this time if Wai Not makes the carnival.
It was a costly exercise last time, shouting for everyboy after watching the race in the Rangiriri pub.