THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ALLIGATOR BLOOD - PART 6

By Jeff Simpson with Graham Potter | Friday, February 28, 2020

Jeff Simpson is one of the owners of Alligator Blood. He spoke to HRO for the first time on September 15 after the All Too Hard gelding had secured his fourth win in a row at the Sunshine Coast, giving us the background to Alligator’s career up until that stage, and he has continued to give HRO readers regular behind the scenes insight into what it is like being one of the owners of racing’s rising star. This is Part 6 of an owner's back-story of Alligator Blood’s progress so far … as experienced by Jeff Simpson.

The route we plotted after the Magic Millions Guineas win was the CS Hayes, the Australian Guineas and the All-Star Mile. As always though, the importance of the schedule comes second to Alligator Blood’s well-being.

The fact that is always in play is that if we think he needs a rest we will just pack up and go home and he can have a long, well deserved spell.

Thankfully, all has gone well up to this stage. Al is stabled at Flemington for his Melbourne campaign … at Danny O’Brien’s stables … and it has proved to be a good place for him to be.

He is very happy there which is obviously very important so, in that respect, everything is working well.

The win in the CS Hayes stakes … well, what a race it was. Everybody is still talking about it.

I may have looked calm but I was not calm on the inside watching that. Afterwards it took me about an hour and a half to stop shaking.

We didn’t know before that race what he would do in a dogfight because he has mostly won so easily. We always knew though that one day we would have to find out what he would do in a dogfight … and we found out alright!

Ryan (Maloney) wasn’t even able to get a good swing at him with the whip because Jimmy (McDonald) was crowding him. That was the plan … so Ryan couldn’t use the whip. Jimmy on the other hand certainly made up on Catalyst for what Ryan couldn’t do on our bloke … but Al still prevailed.

A race like that obviously takes something out of a horse. David has monitored Al closely and we are all happy with where we are now moving forward into the Australian Guineas.

Whatever the outcome, however he pulls up after the Guineas will dictate what happens next. As I said, if he is not right, we will just go home and regroup but, until that situation arises his program still includes that March 14 assignment in the All-Star Mile.

Just quickly on the subject of the All-Star Mile, it blew us away that Al got that many votes I can tell you. That was amazing.

Up until now, everything Al has shown in terms of his constitution and attitude is a credit to both the horse and trainer … particularly in the way that Al has shown he can stay up so well for a long period. Personally, I think he thrives on the competition.

So, we will see what happens tomorrow. We’ll see if it really is a re-match with Catalyst. We don’t know how good some of the others are. We’ll find out tomorrow.

I don’t think the 1600m trip holds any fears for us. We really don’t know how far he is going to get to be honest.

We are happy where he is at.

All you can do is do your best and hope for the best that things will turn out fine.

It is not very often that a horse like him comes along. We are just trying to make the most of every moment with Al.

Tomorrow is the next chapter.

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