A WEEKLY REVIEW: The Good The Bad The Ugly

Good riding, particular Jason Collett on Fangirl, overshadowed top horses at Royal Randwick’s outstanding Apollo Stakes program last Saturday, witnessed oncourse by a measly 4,000.

Once it would have drawn over 20,000 and the patrons, unless they had backed a couple of the hot favourites, like Joliestar and Via Sistina, the best horse in Australia, wouldn’t have been disappointed.

Mind you Jordan Childs, from Melbourne, on Magic Time was also superb getting a result from hair raising circumstances, bringing what appeared to be the best bet of the day, Joliestar, unstuck.

Both were handled by Kerrin McEvoy bringing a resounding grimace: Joliestar ($2.05) going down by a half-length, ending third, in the Expressway while Via Sistina ($2.10) also took out a minor placing, beaten just over a length in the feature, the Apollo Stakes.

Obviously they should have finished closer. To what degree the buck ended with McEvoy is matter of opinion but he was outpointed by Collett on Fangirl who drew outside him and had a trouble-free run.

Via Sistina was hemmed in on the rails when she should have been hot in pursuit of the winner. Yes, it will be argued the clear way wasn’t there. Certainly Chad Schofield on Ceolwulf contributed, voiced by race caller Darren Flindell as “doing the favourite no favours”. Schofield was navigating a give no quarter weight-for-age performance by keeping the favourite hemmed in at a vital stage.

Stewards reported Via Sistina “had difficulty obtaining clear running in the early part of the home straight before racing tight with Ceolwulf at the 200 metres’”. Given daylight earlier Via Sistina would have carved into the length deficit.

Alas being on the outside brought Joliestar undone. “Punters Intelligence” pointed out that the Expressway was the slowest of the three 1200 metre events at Randwick. In fact it was 15 length inferior on the clock compared to the Triscay Stakes.

Some would deduce being three wide from the 700 metres wasn’t such a drawback. However the mare began fast and the jockey hauled her rearwards. It’s easy riding from the stand later, but surely being outside the lead on the hotpot under the circumstances would have been a better option. Also Joliestar was checked at the 900 metres after getting back.

If McEvoy, so slick to score on Inhibitions later, was attempting to keep Magic Time in a pocket it didn’t succeed. Childs had problems against only five rivals but finally weaved through a passage, not riding for luck but to win, memorable on a sparsely populated day.

“And how many are you going to get at Rosehill on Saturday? And you don’t want to sell it,” a vote “yes” to this sacrilege quipped.

The decision to evict the Cummings family from Leilana Lodge is bad. Lelina Lodge is focal chapter of Randwick history and Anthony Cummings a major player with the stable that generated great racehorses under the genius of The Master, Bart Cummings.

Anthony is a good bloke in a bad situation.

Yes, he has fallen into difficult financial difficulties but son, Eddie, is capable of taking the reins until the bean counters are satisfied.

Anthony arrived at Leilani Lodge around 1977: just out of university. He didn’t do accountancy. Easy going with a ready smile, one of his first tasks was to get Peter Cook, the great jockey, out of bed for tracks gallops. Anthony went to Cook’s home, rang the doorbell and entered, made him a cup of tea and slice of toast. Left Cook to get ready for the Randwick assignment. Alas the jockey went straight back to bed.

Later tasks were less demanding. His father served a suspension after a positive sample in Melbourne. The Sydney stable was taken over by another trainer Mal Barnes with Anthony assisting.

Later Bart struck trouble with a major syndication. In 1989 Bart was involved in what he described as a $22 million syndication disaster. Bart was under financial siege. Anthony was the back stop at Leilani Lodge. Bart won the Sydney trainer’s premiership in 1989-90 and had health problems. Anthony was at the helm.

Anthony is a group one winning trainer in his own right, and hardly the first to hit a financial hurdle. The Australian Jockey Club, peopled by turf enthusiasts with an understanding of those who contributed significantly, had debtor’s pile of trainers who owed. But applied TTP (time to pay) and would certainly not threaten to throw a tenant onto High Street.

The ugly aspects of being a colt were again emphasised again on Saturday with Traffic Warden in Flemington Lightning Stakes.

Jockey Jamie Kah described it as being “very well” but he began slowly, finished fifth, and again showed more of an interest elsewhere and getting excited, a drawback the three-year-old displayed last preparation.

Still the benefit of the gelder’s blade was displayed by Shaggy in the Pierro Plate at Randwick. Shaggy is “so called because he wanted to shag everything,” part owner and trainer Allan Kehoe explained after the success.

By Sandbar, Shaggy is the first starter for a first season sire who stood at part-owner Angus Lamont’s Kooringal Stud for $8,800 last year and left favourite Pallaton well in his wake. Pallaton is by boom stallion Wotton Bassett for whom a service in 2024 was $192,500 so Shaggy could well be the rags to riches story of the Golden Slipper if he pursues that course.

Kehoe commented in the Sunday Telegraph that when Shaggy kept Pallaton foundering: “I could have done a nude run I was that excited.”

Should a Golden Slipper appearance give him the same urge which he fulfills it will be good, bad or ugly, a matter of opinion like McEvoy’s defeats last Saturday.