ANOTHER TWO VENUE DOUBLE FOR TEAM GERAN

By Graham Potter | Saturday, November 18, 2023

When a horse puts three wins together in a row, it is probably fair to assume that luck had little to do with it.

A horse doesn’t land a hat trick of wins ... anywhere ... without being well-placed by its trainer, without having inherent fitness to tackle any given assignment and without having the ability to carry through with the task.

Ok, maybe every runner needs a little bit of luck ... even if that only means staying out of trouble ... but, notwithstanding that debate, the Corey and Kylie trained Jack Be Lucky continues to blaze a winning trail with the five-year-old gelding’s latest success coming at Roma in a Country Stampede Qualifier Open Handicap over 1000m on November 18.

This was Jack Be Lucky’s second Country Stampeded Qualifier win. He had already ticked off the first box required to claim a place in the Country Stampede Final when he won a qualifying race at Gympie on October 28, but he still needed to meet the condition of having competed in five races at country meetings between November 21, 2022 and November 21, 2023.

After the win at Gympie, the Geran’s marked a race at Dalby and the race at Roma to ensure, not only that second qualifying box was ticked, but also to being Jack Be Lucky along at a measured rate so that he could be ready to give of his best in the Country Stampede Final at Doomben on December 2.

The second win in his current three-race winning sequence came at Dalby followed by this third win at Roma ... nice when you are multi-tasking, running in races you need to do to qualify for the Stampede Final while also picking up winning prize-money along the way ... a useful $33 550 for the three wins, in fact, taking Jack Be Lucky’s total prize-money earnings to $148 755.

Rob Thorburn had Jack Be Lucky ($8) smartly away and he settled in third spot in the early part, a couple of lengths off the leader, Capital Reign (the $4.20 favourite). That deficit became as much as just under four lengths mid-race, but Thorburn moved Jack Be Lucky closer on the approach to the home turn and the Geran trained straightened to the inside of the long-time leader Capital Reighn, now on three-quarters of a length back.

Jack Be Lucky then quickly dispatched Capital Reign early in the home straight and he looked to have the race already well-and-truly won with 150m left to run, but Hidden Eyes (the second favourite at $5) flew up late along the inside to make the final few strides interesting.

At the line though, Jack Be Lucky had got home safely, albeit by a diminishing 0.20 length margin.

Two weeks to go to the $105 000 Country Stampede Final (on December 2) and going there with an in-form horse.

It’s interesting times for the Geran stable,
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Later that day (November 18), a little under four hours after Jack Be Lucky’s win and 220km away at their home base of Toowoomba, the Corey and Kylie Geran stable completed a same day, two venue double when Tokyo Sins maintained her perfect record since switching to the Geran yard, making it two wins from two starts for the Geran team when she took out a BM58 Handicap over 1100m.

The previous win, in her first run for the stable had also come at Toowoomba in a Ratings Band 0-58 Handicap ... on that occasion over 1000m ... where she got home by 0.20 lengths, and she was good enough to claim a bigger winning margin in this second win for the stable at a starting price of $3.60, beating her market rival Kwami ($3.40) by 0.80 lengths.

The first task for jockey Olivia Webb was to try and successfully negotiate a positive path from the number ten barrier draw and defuse the possible disadvantage threat that wide draw posed ... and that she did successfully, having Tokyo Sins on the charge from the first stride out of the gates ... a fast getaway which allowed her to settle in a perfect third place mid-race, tracking the leader, Better Than Roses ($12), just two to three lengths in arrears while now travelling at a comfortable gallop.

When the speed went on approaching the home turn, with Kwami notably the one forging forward as the widest runner, Tokyo Sims responded on cue to that move, matching Kwami’s surge for the lead ... and these two runners joined battle in earnest, quickly ranging up to ... and then going straight past the early leader Better than Roses ... at which stage it became a straight two-way fight between Tokyo Sins and Kwami.

They fought it out, stride for stride between the 200m and 100m marks and, just when it momentarily seemed Kwami might be going the better, Tokyo Sins put paid to that notion by kicking on the stronger of the two and edging away to claim a well-earned win.

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