Captain takes control in surprise coup
Trainer Michael Stokes was nervous and jockey Paul Taylor was worried but neither needed to be at all concerned turning for home when Captain Todd strode to the front at the top of the straight in yesterday’s $50,000 Timaru Cup.
By Taylor’s own admission, it was too soon for the horse to be striking the front, but he had stolen enough of a march on the field to claim a narrow victory by the time they reached the winning post.
So in the space of 30 seconds, Taylor’s ride went from being bad to well calculated.
And Stokes was happy about it.
‘‘We were rapt to get Paul on, it was just coincidence that he didn’t have a ride and being a top consistent jockey.’’
A five-year-old Captain Rio gelding, Captain Todd has
pretty been racing with distinction in Canterbury for Stokes and his wife Tarsha for most of the season but was let go by punters at odds of $26 to one.
After slipping the cutter on the field at the top of the straight, Taylor had to call on all the reserves to get Captain Todd home but did enough holding out the late charge of The Solitaire and Faxed booming home right down the outside to finish third.
‘‘He’s pretty honest, he’s never really out of the money,’’ Stokes said.
‘‘He’s won a couple of good races – including on premier day and also a North Canterbury Cup, yet he seems to go under everybody’s eyelids when he lines up.’’
Yesterday’s win was just the fifth in a 27-start career for Captain Todd but his stake earnings now sit at more than $85,000.
The joy of victory in a listed feature for the Stokes stable was buoyed further with the bold fourth placing of Howbadouneedit in behind the winning stablemate.
‘‘She hasn’t had a race for a month because there hasn’t been a race for her.
‘‘It was only in the last 50 metres that they got to her, so that was pretty impressive.’’
Apprentice jockey Amelia Denby notched up a notable milestone in her riding career earlier in the day with a winning double, taking her to 50 career wins.
Apprenticed to the stable of Michael Pitman at Riccarton, Denby has done a great job from limited opportunities in the saddle and underlined that yesterday with her brace of wins.
She scored in the first of the day with Gervasio and backed that up with another winner two races later in The Governator.
Both runners were trained by Pitman, whose stable is starting to warm up as it gears up for a big racing period ahead.