A WEEKLY REVIEW: The Good The Bad The Ugly

Is there anyone aged and as GOOD, in a demanding pursuit, as Nash Rawiller, again showcasing skill and strength at Randwick and Canterbury last week?

Now 51, Rawiller has arms and legs that gyrate with the fervour of an Olympian, seen to advantage with a Randwick treble on Saturday and after Just Maz at Canterbury on Friday night.

No other jockey, including the world’s best, James McDonald and Zac Purton, could have achieved the results under similar circumstances.

In a finish when the whip was most effective the best in my time, prior to Rawiller, were Lester Piggott, Mick Dittman and Des Lake.

Piggot applied a shillelagh the size of a beach fishing rod and swung like a singing sword, Dittman was an enforcer with motion matched with strike rate while Lake was forceful with a machine gun rapidity.

By comparison, Rawiller fires with a quirt that’s more fly swatter than persuader. It’s not what you’ve got but how you use it, and there is more to race riding than power.

None were as good, at around 50 plus, as Rawiller, who adds entertainment to normal programs like Canterbury and Royal Randwick where the opposition, including J-Mac, was strong, particularly from the younger brigade.

Tyler Schiller was responsible for a tactical masterpiece on Furious while Braith Nock fulfilled the claim of Theo Green, the greatest teacher of apprentices.

“They ride as good as jockeys and get a claim,” Green maintained. But not Rawiller.

Nock gave Kingston Charm every chance in the Midway but couldn’t reel in Promitto, lifted by the old boy. Also Kingdom Underseige and Sandpiper required all the assistance Rawiller could give them but none more so than Just Maz at Canterbury on Friday night.

Alas, Diddle Dumpling in the John Singleton silks required more than even Rawiller could give her, finishing behind Super Norwest in the Coolmore at Mount White Handicap. Ironically, the race is named for a former Singleton property. Nock rode Super Norwest smoothly for the astute Goulburn trainer Matt Dale.

However at Canterbury Just Maz, carrying the same colours, was backed into $1.55 and the veteran lifted her over the last couple of strides to score after being in danger of being another hotpot to go down.

At Caulfield on Saturday Angel’s Fury, at $1.70, did not complete the Blue Diamond Prelude. Angel’s Fury pulled up lame in the near foreleg. BAD but not in the mould of Ninja, the previous Saturday at the Gold Coast which has turned UGLY.

Ninja, at $1.60, was beaten three quarters of a length in the $3 million Magic Millions Classic by Torque To Be Sure after being bumped and bustled by the winner. Stewards dismissed the protest.

Racenet reported Queensland integrity authority Kim Kelly has lashed the “disgusting abuse” from “nameless, faceless people” that stewards and staff have experienced after the decision.

Not surprisingly, Kelly, a former stipe with a reputation for showing no mercy in the role before he went to Hong Kong, agreed with the steward’s decision. I did not.

Social media went berserk, but I put the protest to the Wit’s Row at Randwick, encompassing centuries of turf knowledge. Protest upheld, but they regurgitated memories of previous controversial objections.

Saturday had not started well. Having been on a train under cattle truck conditions from Woy Woy to Central for my return to Randwick, the first since departing the Eastern Suburbs, had me on the back foot.

But the mention of the 1969 protest when Nausari lost the Caulfield Cup to Big Philou was excruciating. It was money, my money and the pain still lingers.

Steward’s inquiries, at the time, in Melbourne, were behind closed doors, but the word filtered out. The honey tongue of Roy Higgins (Big Philou) lacquered stipes over the delivery of “Cowboy” Lake (Nausari), better placed singing to cattle.

However I wouldn’t touch an odds-on chance like Ninja with counterfeit. My Ninja call is opinion. Yes, questionable. Some good judges have gone the opposite way. I have no sympathy for key board warriors or those who abuse the messenger.

Still the most two questionable words in steward’s speak “comfortably satisfied” grate. A jockey can charge down the straight, wielding a ball and chain at a rival, but if the officials are “comfortably satisfied” it made no difference to their opinion of the result? Protest dismissed, regardless of the rules of racing, careless riding, and whip violations, that are breached.

Horse sense: “I once bought a $ 1million yearling. Everyone was patting me on the back when they really should have been hitting me over the head with a baseball bat,” John Sadler, veteran racehorse trainer, to Matt Steward in “Winning Post”.