BRC JUL 25 - FIGHTING WIN FOR ARMSTRONG JONES

By Graham Potter | Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Doomben, July 25, 2009.
Class 6 Handicap - 1650.Time: 1-37.24.
Track - Good 3. Rail - out 5m.
1 Armstrong Jones; 2 All Our Way; 3 D'Elcatraz.

The David Murphy trained Armstrong Jones landed a grinding win here. The four-year-old sat a touch wide, improving to a better than midfield in the sweep to the turn but he still had plenty of work to do when the field entered the straight.

The determination was there from both horse and rider, with jockey Christian Reith giving Armstrong Jones a clear run allowing him to run his own race over the final 350m, but there was no real acceleration. Instead Armstrong Jones had to carve out a result through commitment as he took the whole length of the straight to run down the leaders, getting to the front in the final few strides to land the fifth victory of his career.

WINNER FEEDBACK:
Trainer David Murphy: “He’s one-paced. I think he wants 2000m now. He’s been up a bit this prep, but he’s taken a long time to get fit because he is such a gross horse. He needs 2000m. He is very good in track-work. He can gallop really good at the track. He doesn’t go quite as good on the race- day. He does go good on race-day, don’t get me wrong, but his work is better than his race-day performance, because he is just so one-paced on race-day.

“I think he showed he absolutely needs 2000m, or from now on anyway ... the way he raced. If he can get 2000m there might be a few more in him, because you are going to struggle to get that far back over a mile around here and still get a result.”

Jockey Christian Reith: “Yeah, he is a horse that is stepping up to the mark now. The further he goes, the better he is going to go.”

PRICE FLUCTUATIONS:
Winner (Armstrong Jones): 5.50 out to 6.00.
Favourite (Jazz Heart): 2.50 out t0 2.70 in to 2.60.

STEWARDS REPORT EXTRACT:
Jazz Heart (S. Scriven) faltered on jumping away. Kinsmate (B. El-Issa) was slow to jump. Charvicky (O. Turpin), which was a little slow to jump, was tightened between D'Elcatraz (K. Pope) and Uncle Jan (J. Byrne), which shifted in. Barclays (J. Taylor) was caught three wide rounding the first turn and raced three wide for the remainder of the event.

When questioned as to Jazz Heart being held up in the straight, S. Scriven stated that he had considered taking a run to the inside of All Our Way (N. Paine) on straightening, however All Our Way was laying in at the time and he therefore elected to pursue a run between D'Elcatraz and Barclays but that run did not eventuate and he was held up for clear running.