POTENTIAL REALISED AS DUPORTH LANDS BTC CUP

By Graham Potter | Saturday, May 9, 2009

BTC Cup (Group 1 - WFA) - 1200m. Time 1-08.96. Track: Good 3. Rail: True.
The track record for this distance of 1-07.88 is held by Takeover Target.
1 Duporth; 2 Bank Robber; 3 Apache Cat.

WINNER FEEDBACK
Luke Nolan patiently positioned Duporth in the second half of the field as Bank Robber stole Swiss Ace’s thunder at the head of affairs. Blake Shinn rated Bank Robber almost perfectly in front and the Gai Waterhouse trained runner kicked on solidly from the 300m. Swiss Ace was the first to cry enough. Apache Cat, at first struggled to gain momentum but then found his feet. Snipers Bullet began to threaten along the rail ... but, suddenly, nobody was going any better than Duporth who flashed home late in a three-way go which saw him just snare Bank Robber on the line by a half-head with Apache Cat only a nose back in third placing.

Trainer Anthony Cummings: “He is a top quality three-year-old. You are trying to work out the best Group 1’s to win with him knowing he is highly capable of doing it. So we set our sights on the Newmarket in the first place (three runs back) and he ran a really good race. He missed the gap, then when he got the run he hit his straps and hit the line better than any of them. So his run was first class. With a clear run he would have at least run second. He then came to Sydney. He had no luck in the Phar Lap ... he drew an outside gate in the Galaxy. He hit the line again there. He has been hitting the line all the way through. He has been racing against the best of them. He has just had no luck. So, today we got lucky. Long may it continue.”

Jockey Luke Nolan: “It wasn’t probably until we’d got the 600m behind us that I started to think we had a winning chance. We’d were off the bit the whole way until then. I thought they controlled the race a lot more from the front today ... but they ran it very, very truly. As a result that suited me. The leader Bank Robber, he did a terrific job. I thought he was home, but we managed to pull it out. I wasn’t sure that I’d got up. My one just got out a touch on me late, so I wasn’t sure. I knew I’d levelled up, I didn’t know if I’d got my head in front. I’m glad to say I did.
“He was very determined, but the race sort of stacked up for him nicely. They went hard early. He had the nice tow into the race and he finished it off very strongly. Normally this is a great form indicator for the next two races (the Doomben 10 000 and the Stradbroke), so I can’t see why he can’t go on. He probably be even better suited coming back to handicapping conditions, although, having now won a Group 1, he may come in with a slight disadvantage. But it doesn’t matter when they’re winning.

“I should mention Hugh Bowman. He got suspended last Saturday, so he was unable to fulfil his engagement on him (Duporth). Hugh has ridden him when he’s had his weight the whole way through this prep, so I was very fortunate to jump into the winners’ hot seat today. I rode him his first start, funnily enough. It was a long time ... it was this time last year in Sydney, and he struck me as a really nice horse there. It’s the first time I’ve been on his back since and he has grown into a beautiful horse.
“That was my fifth Group 1 – a Blue Diamond, a WA Derby, a Cox Plate, a Caulfield Guineas and now a BTC Cup.”

This Group 1 victory at the scene of his horror fall put the exclamation mark on the comeback of Luke Nolan. Nolan’s fall from on Antidotes at Doomben on May 17 last year left a cloud over his immediate future. How hard was the road back to the winners’ enclosure?

Luke Nolan: “I was always going to come back (after a bad fall at Doomben). I broke my face in about seven spots. It’s only the good that die young. I’m going to live till I’m one-hundred-and- fifty. It was never a matter of ‘if’ I came back, it was ‘when’. I just had to let the body heal. I was out for three months and it probably took me another three months to find form, sort of thing.

“The last six months have been really good to me and (trainer) Peter Moody. It’s been a long trek back to the top, but I never ever considered that it might be too hard for me to get back. I’ve been through more. Just getting to the races as a young apprentice you probably go through a hell of a lot more than I did after my fall. It just needed time for my body to mend. I’m young and fit still, so the body came back one hundred percent and so did the mind.

“I did start from humble beginnings, but Rome wasn’t built in a day and Peter Moody took me from the shithouse to the penthouse in about five years ... or three years. I’ve got to give him a lot of credit for my success as well. Peter is a true Western Queenslander. His word is as solid as oak. I must thank him. He has done a terrific job for me.”

PRICE FLUCTUATIONS:
Winner (Duporth): 12.00 out top 14.00.
Equal favourite (Apache Cat): 2.70 out to 3.10 in to 3.00. Finished third.
Equal favourite (Swiss Ace): 3.20 out top 3.40 in to 3.00. Finished ninth.

STEWARDS REPORT EXTRACT:
Apache Cat had a tendency to lay in under pressure in the straight. After the race Apache Cat was examined by the Club's veterinary surgeon. He said he observed that the horse had sustained a small laceration to the front of its off-hind coronet band and in his opinion was exhibiting some signs of soreness in a front off fetlock joint. Stewards believed that before Apache Cat can race again a veterinary certificate of fitness will have to be produced.

K. Pope (Swiss Ace) said that he had intended to lead in the race but was not able to comfortably do so and raced alongside Bank Robber. He said that he thought he had travelled satisfactorily until about the home turn and when the horse was put under pressure did not respond as he expected it would and in all the circumstances was very disappointing. He said the horse had been working well, looked well before the race and in his opinion pulled up well. Mr Mair, trainer of Swiss Ace, said that he thought the horse had travelled well, but he did say that he had disappointed previously when not able to lead. He also said that he thought Swiss Ace pulled up satisfactorily. However, the Club's veterinary surgeon said that when he examined Swiss Ace after the race the horse was coughing and it was therefore decided that before Swiss Ace can race again a veterinary certificate of fitness will have to be produced and this must include the results of an endoscopic examination.