THE SUNSHINE COAST NEWSPAPER COLUMN: HOUTZEN - ANOTHER STORY FOR THE 'THAT'S RACING' FOLDER

By Graham Potter | Friday, June 21, 2019

Graham Potter writes a weekly column for the Sunshine Coast daily. Due to demand from those having trouble accessing the paper these columns are now also published on HRO courtesy of the Sunshine Coast daily.

‘That’s racing,’ is a standard response used by those who have just had their hopes dashed to describe a race situation that didn’t go to plan.

Simple and to the point … but hidden behind those two words are hundreds of stories, none of which will ever change the result but which do bring the ‘luck’ aspect of racing into perspective or, to be more precise, they do show how one second of misfortune can derail hundreds of hours of preparation.

Take the case of Houtzen on the global stage at Royal Ascot on Tuesday.

The Gold Coast based, Toby Edmonds trained mare, had travelled to England in March to give her good time to acclimatise to the foreign conditions and to allow her the luxury of following a steady, carefully measured work schedule leading up to her targeted June mission in the King’s Stand Stakes.

All went well. The horse was issue free and happy and there was a confidence in the camp as she progressed with her followers having the view that she would race far better than the long-price odds about her chances suggested might be the case.

There were some almost routine lines in the pre-race interviews seemingly stating the obvious.

“She begins well,” said Edmonds. “She quick out of the stalls,” said Sky Racing interviewer Lizzy Jelfs. “She’s quick. She is always up at the front end,” said jockey Kerrin McEvoy … all fair comments given Houtzen’s general pattern of racing, but little did they know that one second of misfortune was just around the corner.

As the starting gates opened Houtzen knuckled over, almost nose planting as McEvoy showed the highest degree of horsemanship to stay in the saddle.

Almost just as quickly Houtzen was back up and running. She bravely made every attempt to follow the original game-plan but it became clear as early as halfway up the straight that she was not going well enough to be a serious factor in the outcome.

It will remain a matter of conjecture just how much that incident cost Houtzen. After watching the two favourites Blue Point and Battaash fight out the finish it does seem improbable that Houtzen would have been able to mix it with those two robust runners even if all had gone well at the break, but the fact remains that her knuckling at the start immediate placed her behind the eight ball.

To their credit there was not one word of excuse from the Houtzen camp.

We will never know what the difference would have been, if any, in the way the race could have unfolded if Houtzen had jumped freely and if McEvoy had been hard on the accelerator in that first stride instead of having to help Houtzen regain her balance.

Let's just say it is another story for the ‘that’s racing’ folder.

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