Shark to circle and pounce in Cox Plate
Hyped horse with huge fan base has massive task today
There are two versions of Te Akau Shark in today’s A$5 million Cox Plate at The Valley. The first one is the one you probably want to read about. The fairytale.
It is the story of a magnificent chestnut who in last season’s Couplands Mile didn’t just look something special but truly exceptional.
He is the horse with the cool name, the sharp young trainer and our best jockey in Opie Bosson.
He has fans who wear shark-fin hats, a famous former footy player for a part owner (Paul Gallen) and his own twitter account.
He is big, bold and beautiful, the horse most Kiwi race fans want to win today’s weight-for-age championship.
We also wanted him to win the Epsom at Randwick last start and he probably should have. The defeat was so brave it fed the Shark mania.
Remarkably, considering you can get as much as $21 for Te Akau Shark to win the Cox Plate, he has been the second-most hyped horse of race week, only behind wonderful Japanese mare Lys Gracieux.
It he wins, and he can win, it will be a rare nugget mined from the rich vein of Australian weight-for-age races that New Zealand horses have struggled to strike pay dirt from in recent years.
So if you are a New Zealand racing fan you probably want to see the reddish horse carrying the tangerine colours come from last and storm to stardom at The Valley just before 7pm tonight.
But then there is the other side of the Te Akau Shark tale. That not so fun, logical version.
That story is exactly why you can get $21 about him. The one that will see him jump from the outside barrier, settle near last at best and have to run past a pack of hardened rivals who have won group ones, while he hasn’t.
No shame in that. Te Akau Shark’s Epsom second was as good as most group one wins and he is only having his 10th start today. He is very good but many of those he will give a start to today are just as good. Some probably better.
Richards is a young man who works too hard to not think about the details of his craft so he knows. Part of being the face of Te Akau is to buy into the hype and to sell the dream.
But he knows the Te Akau Shark dream is improbable today. Unless they get some help from an overambitious rival jockey.
“It is going to be hard, I know that,” admits Richards. “These are all good horses and my heart sank when we got the outside barrier.
“On paper it doesn’t look like there is going to be a lot of natural tempo, but it is the Cox Plate and hopefully a couple of horses we don’t expect go forward do and have a go.
“If we get that tempo then we have a shot. If we don’t, then they might bunch up at the 800m and we could get pushed wider and wider.
“So it is going to be a hard race to win but the horse is well and and he handled the track well this week.”
Richards has nothing but respect for Lys Gracieux, who is rated clearly superior to last week’s Caulfield Cup winner Mer De Glace and fellow Japanese-trained Cox Plate runner Kluger.
And it might pay punters to remember Kluger got closest to Winx when she won the Queen Elizabeth in her last race at Randwick last April.
It sums up the lack of world class Australian weight-for-age horses in the Winx era and with the champ gone, the locals are vulnerable. To the Japanese, the Europeans and maybe even a Kiwi with a fishy name.
A stunning winner of the group one Takarazuka Kinen over a punishing 2200m in June, Lys Gracieux isn’t unbeatable but she has proven she is world class.
Even when beaten into second in the Hong Kong Vase last December she still beat home Waldgeist, the horse who denied Enable her third Arc in Paris three weeks ago.
There are other internationals like Danceteria and Magic Wand, who doesn’t win often but can place behind the best of them while Kings Will Dream and Mystic Journey have just as much claim to a fairytale as our Shark.
And let’s not forget the truly remarkable story of Verry Elleegant, who 13 months ago was ploughing through the Matamata mud for just $6250 to win her second race.
But most of us don’t care about all that. We want The Valley turned into a Shark tank, with no rival spared. We want the illogical dream.
The reality is we probably won’t get it. And if we do, then Te Akau Shark is even better than the hype suggests.