DOOM JAN 04 - GLARE STARES DOWN HIS RIVALS

By Graham Potter | Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Doomben, Janauary 4, 2012.
Track - Good 3; Rail - out 6m (1000 - 375m); out 4m (remainder).
Class 3 Handicap - 1640m.
1 Glare; 2 Count Your Fingers; 3 Shocking Blue; 4 Wabeel.
Time: 1.38.96. Last 600m: 33.24.

It would be an understatement to say that the Paul Messara trained Glare had everything his own way here.

A soft lead (nobody was interested in giving the leader something to think about), a gentle kick and then a touch of ability saw him safely home in untroubled fashion as he claimed his fourth career win in his thirteenth start. The five runner-up finishes on his record shows he has always threatened to start stepping up to the mark and this latest win could give him the confidence to do so.

The gelding has been up a while now. He possibly will be more of a force next time in.

Race stewards were on the mark in calling for an explanation from jockey Ryan Wiggins with regard to his ride on Staked Emotion. Wiggins vigourously restrained his mount for much of the first 1000m of the race, fighting the gelding all of that way and it was no surprise that Staked Emotion failed to respond when finally asked for his effort in the home straight.

After being strangled, fought for so long and being told not to run, the horse had lost his taste for battle, was short on energy (after having wasted so much of it on a meaningless cause) and arguably downright confused as to what was expected of him.

Predicatably Staked Emotion dropped away steadily in the straight to finish a poor second last. As Alan Thomas said in his on-air summary of the race, ‘he pulled his head off and that was it.’

Jockeys reputations are sometimes sold short by the fact that those leveling criticism after forget that many times riders have to split second decisions at full speed, but when a rider has 1000m in which to make the right call, punters are entitled to expect the rider to come through more often than not.

When Larry Cassidy failed to do so on Trump, in very similar circumstances to the Wiggins ride, he was summoned before the stewards . On that occasion, the stewards took the matter further and ultimately suspended Cassidy for two months. (Cassidy beat that finding on appeal. The stewards then appealed that verdict and that outcome is still pending from QCAT).

On this occasion, after taking all evidence into account, stewards ‘advised jockey Wiggins that in their view he had ridden a poorly judged race’ … and they left it at that.

It is that ‘inconsistency’ problem again. Perceived or real, it is a problem.

There seems to be little difference between the culpability of the two rides expect for the starting price of the respective runners (Trump was a $1.70 favourite) so the radical discrepancy in the outcome for the rider can be confusing to punters, particularly those who supported Staked Emotion.

Rubbing salt into the wounds of those punters was the fact that Glen Colless had been due to ride Staked Emotion and it was only when he was stood down due to illness that Wiggins took the reins.

Colless is a master horseman. He doesn’t fight horses. He works with them and few would bet against the fact that Staked Emotion’s run would have unfolded vastly differently to what transpired if he had retained his seat.

That run is history now. Draw a line through it. Put Staked Emotion’s name in the ‘black book’ and watch out for him next time, particularly if G Colless is in the saddle.

*Glare was passed in at $310 000 as a yearling at the 2009 MM Sales. His reserve price was $350 000. Interestingly enough, the horse that chased him home here, Count Your Fingers, was purchased by Patinack Farm in a similar price range. Count Your Fingers cost $330 000.

WINNER FEEDBACK:
Eden Petrie (foreman for the Paul Messara stable): “He did look to be the only real pace in the race. The horse inside him (Staked Emotion) led at Ipswich the other day in lesser company, but when they went out I thought just let him roll forward mate. Nothing else was going. I knew then he was going to take some catching.

“He has been up a long time. Yeah, that was his sixth run in this time, as well as a couple of trials. That last run (when second to I’llbetricked at the Sunshine Coast) he took a good week to bounce back and we thought, oh well … he’s had enough, but then he was back.

“He is just such a good little horse. He’s honest as they come. Every run he puts in one hundred percent.”

Jockey Luke Rolls: “I got a pretty cheap lead. They just played into my hands.

“I had a lapful of horse the whole race and I could have used it whenever I wanted to. The result was never in doubt.”

PRICE FLUCTUATIONS:
Winner (Glare): 2.60 out to 3.00.
Favourite (Wabeel): 2.70 in to 2.40. Finished fourth.

STEWARDS REPORT EXTRACT:
Connections advised Shocking Blue would be ridden in rearward position with blinkers removed today. The horse was ridden accordingly.

Stewards sought an explanation from rider R. Wiggins in respect to the tactics he adopted on Staked Emotion, whereby he continually restrained the horse down the back straight when occupying a position outside the leader when the pace was slow.

R. Wiggins informed stewards that he was instructed to ride Staked Emotion with cover on the basis that the horse was stepping up from 1350m to 1600m today and at its most recent start it had led and weakened over the concluding stages.

Trainer M. Dunn confirmed the instructions issued to R. Wiggins and reiterated that Staked Emotion was stepping up to 1600m today and informed stewards that he was keen to have the horse ridden in a fashion which enabled it to finish the race off strongly.

After considering all the evidence stewards advised jockey Wiggins that in their view he had ridden a poorly judged race in that he continued to restrain Staked Emotion when occupying the position outside the lead when the first 1000m of the race was recorded to be covered in 105.72.

More articles