LARRY’S VIEW - SAD FOR THE CARNIVAL BUT THE RIGHT DECISION FOR THE HORSE

By Larry Cassidy | Friday, May 20, 2011

Larry Cassidy currently has forty-two Group 1 successes behind his name. He is a multiple Premiership winning jockey having taken out three titles in Sydney and one in Brisbane. Larry’s View, the personal blog of this top class rider will appear on horseracingonly.com.au every Friday, workload permitting.

The news that Peter Moody and the owners of Black Caviar had decided to spell their champion instead of pressing on to the Doomben 10 000, yet again underlined the uncertainty regarding the ‘what happens next’ factor in the racing game.

When making these sort of decisions, realistically, you have to put your horse first and that is what Peter Moody has done. He feels she needs extra time in the paddock and if he feels that is the way to go that has to be the right decision for her.

Obviously it is disappointing for the Brisbane race-goers and for the Brisbane Racing Club, because I think next Saturday was going to be the ultimate day in Brisbane’s racing.

I suppose there is a genuine touch of sadness that it’s not going to happen, but on the other hand maybe now I get to run second instead of third.

At the end of the day, it is nice to see that the animal comes first and that the decision as big as this one is made on that basis. Once again this just demonstrates the professionalism and class of the connections of Black Caviar as they go about their business.

Racing against her last Saturday was a special experience.

Hay List and Buffering … we had such a soft first 600. I went up to join Hay List going nearly head-to-head from the 600m because I wanted to start quickening up from the 600 to make sure we came home in incredibly fast sectionals.

I knew my bloke could run 33 or 33-and-a-bit and I thought well, if we do that, Black Caviar’s got to break 33 to beat us which is very hard to do.

As we got to the 500m mark we had quickened up so much we were flying coming to the corner. Things go through your mind … it happens in a split second … and at that stage I thought, jeez, I wonder where she is.

As we came to the point of the corner I saw her out of the corner of my eye. On the other side I’m watching Hay List. He’s going good. I’m going alright and then I saw her out of the corner of my eye and I thought, oh my God … it’s over.

If you watch on the replay you can see me coming around the turn … and we are quickening up … and I give that quick glance and my response to what I saw was pretty much, ‘ah f….!’

Black Caviar and Hay List then put three lengths on me pretty quickly. The margin back to me in the end was six to seven lengths … and my horse is no mug horse. He hasn’t won a Group 1 race, but he’s got his hoof on the till of a Group 1 race. Other runners in that race had won Group 1 races and they all finished behind me.

You can watch Black Caviar run on television and say, jeez she’s a champion, but when you ride against her and Hay List and that happens you really do know how good they are.

Black Caviar is just an outstanding performer and if Black Caviar wasn’t there we’d be calling Hay List a champion.

Looking forward, going on form, if you look at what Hay List has done … he has won at the seven furlongs and he beat them easy … you would think he is going to be nearly impossible to beat in anything he runs in now that Black Caviar is out of the picture.

But, it is horseracing, so nothing is impossible.

I was walking around behind Hay List before the race on Saturday and he is built like a tank, his hind-quarters are massive, he is very impressive to look at.

As far as Buffering was concerned, I didn’t want to take the stick to him too much in the straight on Saturday.

My main thought after Black Caviar and Hay List had forged ahead was, ok, we just want to run third.

Obviously the last little bit he was tiring, but we had run so fast from the 600 to about the 250 where he started to tire.

You must remember Buffering was second-up and prior to his first-up run he had a setback, so that had to be a telling factor too in his legs. In the last little bit he was entitled to get leg-tired, but he held on for third which was great.

Last Saturday Buffering had to give Black Caviar half-a-kilo. On handicap, realistically, she should be giving us something like 12kg … and we had to give her half-a-kilo and he is still a young horse.

So if you put everything in perspective, we might have been beaten six or seven lengths, but it is still a great run and I do think Buffering is progressing well towards the Stradbroke. Certainly he is heading in the right direction.

Buffering does come into the Stradbroke with 51kg which provides its own test for me.

My weight has been pretty good the last month. The last week-and-a-half I’ve been struggling slightly, only due to the fact that I’ve had a bit of flu.

I'm feeling the best I’ve felt for a while right now. On Thursday I felt terrible … a sore throat and fever. Even last week I was sick and I couldn’t ride on Friday.

I haven’t been training as hard because my body has been like that. Hopefully I am now getting over it. Maybe it was good because it has given my body a chance to take a break before I start trying to ride the light weight.

Look, it would be nice if Hay List doesn’t pay up for the Stradbroke and the weights go up 1kg. That would make it 1kg easier for me to do.

I might not have been able to get near to Black Caviar and Hay List in the BTC Cup, but Humma gave me a Group 3 win on the day. It was good to get to come back to the winners’ enclosure on such a special day.

I had such a good run on Humma, even though I had to use him early because he is so lazy. If you don’t ride the ears off him early he won’t get going.

Once I got into position he travelled beautifully. I came out at the 600 and was able to slide forward. I had Crossthestart outside me and I was able to get out.

I thought, ok, we are going to be in the finish. Then as we got closer to the line I thought we’re going to get close to winning it. As we hit the line, I thought I’d got beat but he got the bob in.

I was screaming my guts out at him. I was not only hitting him with the whip backhand, but I was shouting … throwing everything I had at him. I tried to push his head down on the line and obviously it worked.

I was pleased for Rob Heathcote when Fillydelphia made it a group winning double for the stable in the race after Humma had saluted, even though I was not in the saddle.

I suppose, yes, it is disappointing from a personal view that I was not on her after being her regular pilot for so long … because you miss out on a winner in a good race.

But, look, that’s racing. Owners and trainers have the right to put on whoever they want. They thought the filly needed a change. I think taking the blinkers off was probably the biggest thing and they decided to go with the change of jockey too.

This is not the first time this has happened and I would be naive if I thought this would be the last.

She looked good her first run back. Her next two runs she didn’t. Both Rob and I know how good she is and she got the job done on Saturday so, even though it was disappointing I wasn’t on her, it was satisfying to know that I wasn’t wrong about her ability and that the work we put in has paid off.

I’ve now won two of the five Group races contested in Brisbane so far this carnival. Hopefully I can kick on and build on that good start.

Till next week,
Larry

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