DOOM AUG 22 - EUREKA KEEPS ON WINNING

By Graham Potter | Tuesday, August 25, 2009

The connections of Eureka are very pleased they found the horse while he still had a racing career ahead of him. The chestnut slipped through some cracks in administration and spent his formative years out it the paddock before his owner realised he was on the books, at which time he was brought into training as a five-year-old.

Now a six-year-old, Eureka certainly seems intent on making up for lost time and this latest win was his fourth from only nine starts.

Apprentice jockey Chris McIver made excellent use of the number one barrier. He settled Eureka just off the speed early on and moved into contention, saving ground, on the sweep to the turn. McIver then angled his mount out on straightening and set sail after the leader Viking Eagle. It took a while for Eureka to build momentum, but build momentum he did to dispatch Viking Eagle and then kick on well enough to easily hold off Shooting Scene (who ran on well late) and Lander (who chased gamely the whole length of the straight).

Doomben, August 22, 2009.
Track - Good 2. Rail - out 2.5m.
Class 6 Handicap - 2100m. Time: 2-09.45.
1 Eureka; 2 Shooting Scene; 3 Lander.

WINNER FEEDBACK:
Trainer Robert Heathcote: “This is the horse that got found, hence the name Eureka. The owner phoned me one day and said guess what, I’ve found a horse. I said what do you mean you found a horse? He said I’ve got that many, I’ve got a horse in the paddock I didn’t know I owned. Will you train it for me? I said of course I will.

“Lo and behold he said, I’m going to try and name it Eureka - ‘we’ve found it’ - after the Greek um ... what’s his name ... Archimedes, you know he said ‘I’ve found it’ when he discovered some theory or other. Well the owner found this horse.

“We brought him up to Queensland and he’s the most unusual horse I have ever had to train because he was basically a five-year-old that had never been handled ... so he was like a five-year-old juvenile. Nobody had ever touched him and he just didn’t know what to do.

“I identified very early that he was a horse with some ability. I just wasn’t sure at that stage over what distance. He has rapidly shown us ... you know he was won four of his last five ... that he is a stayer of some hope. He is a pretty handy horse.

“The thing that he has ... which most of us know with good stayers ... he has got that little turn of foot. He can put himself in the race. Today from barrier one ... Chris McIver, he rode him a treat. Taking the 2kg off was just an advantage, just a bonus as far as I was concerned.

“When he saw the opening come at the top of the straight he peeled him out and went bang and put a couple on them and he was always going to be hard to beat then with only 51 on his back.”

PRICE FLUCTUATIONS:
Winner (Eureka): 9.00 steady.
Favourite (Lander): 5.50 out to 6.00 in to 5.50. Finished third.

STEWARDS REPORT EXTRACT:
Lander (S. Katsidis) lost its footing behind at the start and as a result lost ground. Jockey B. El-Issa, the rider of Famous Fortune, was charged with careless riding under AR. 137(a), the careless riding being that near the 1500m he permitted his mount to shift in when not sufficiently clear of Barclays (J. Taylor), resulting in that horse having to be checked. After hearing further evidence from B. El-Issa and J. Taylor, stewards did not sustain the charge and afforded jockey B. El-Issa the benefit of a doubt as to whether he had taken sufficient measures to prevent his mount from shifting in causing Barclays to be checked.