GCTC JUL 01 - MONCHING SCORES FIRST-UP SUCCESS

By Matthew Grimson | Friday, July 3, 2009

Gold Coast, July 1, 2009.
Maiden Handicap - 900m. Time: 54.55.
Track - Slow 6. Rail - True.
1 Monching; 2 Giddyupjayjay; 3 Tom Cat Creek

The John Morrisey trained Monching was full of himself in the pre-race parade. The colt then ran in, away from the whip, between between the 200m and the 75m mark and gave jockey Jim Byrne a head butt on the way back to scale, but the result was is in the bank as his sustained finishing effort proved good enough to carry the day.

For all of his waywardness, this was a promising effort from the lightly raced Monching first-up after a three-and-a-half month spell. This first win came in his fifth career start.

WINNER FEEDBACK:
Trainer John Morrisey: “He’s come back from a spell. There were no issues with him going into the spell. He’s a bit of a dumb horse, you know. He sort of jumped in the air out of the barriers and he’s mentally sort of not there yet.

"He’s been working well, we sort of thought he’d go pretty good. I was hoping that the nose roll (which was fitted for the first time) would stop him jumping in the air a bit, but it didn’t. Hopefully maturity will do that.

“We’ll see how we go. He’s a funny sort of horse. Last time in we sort of moved him up over longer distances but you know, you’ve got to experiment with these sort of horses - ride them a little bit quieter - things like that and he might get it. There are so many tricks to them.”

Jockey Jim Byrne: “Yeah, he gave me a blow - a bit of a belt around the eyes while we were out there. He doesn’t really know what he is about yet. He looks around a lot and he’s very, very shy around other runners. Not so much in the race. He actually tries to get in on top of them a little bit in the race. But otherwise anything your doing with the horse he is a little bit timid.

"He’s got a little bit to learn but hopefully he can continue on from here. I tried not to chase him too much, sit off them a little bit, and give him a nice clean crack at them, and basically that’s the way it turned out.”

PRICE FLUCTUATIONS:
Winner (Monching): 4.00 out to 4.60.
Favourite (Pretty ‘N’ Potent): 3.00 out to 3.50. Finished fifth.

STEWARDS REPORT EXTRACT:
Hogans Crossing and Two Rivers were both declared late withdrawals at 1.33 p.m. by order of stewards acting on veterinary advice after Two Rivers became extremely fractious in the barriers and lashed out injuring itself and Hogans Crossing. Trainer of Two Rivers A. Moir was advised the mare must trial to the satisfaction of stewards before racing again.

Sequential Point (App M. Palmer) and Miss Madi (B. Hull) were tightened on jumping away between Polish County (S. Drake) and Barnicolo (D. Craven), which shifted in.

J. Byrne the rider of Monching pleaded guilty to a charge of careless riding under the provisions of AR137(a) in that he permitted his mount to shift in near the 100m causing Sequential Point to be checked and lose ground. J. Byrne's licence to ride in races was suspended for a period of six (6) meetings to commence midnight 4 July 2009 and expire midnight 15 July 2009. In assessing penalty stewards took into account J. Byrne's exceptionally good record in interference related matters.