HINGED CRUISES TO HER THIRD WIN IN A ROW AND HER FIFTH WIN FROM ONLY SEVEN STARTS

By Graham Potter | Sunday, July 25, 2021

Boom apprentice Kyle Wilson-Taylor ticked another significant box in his career when he rode his first Saturday Metropolitan winner at Doomben on Saturday.

The young hoop partnered the very smart Hinged to a clear-cut victory in the opening race on the card to take the Michael Nolan trained runner’s record to five wins from seven starts with two runner-up finishes.

Wilson-Taylor admitted to being relieved at putting the win behind his name saying there was a lot of nerves going into the day but that the race ended up being a comfortable sit and steer for him.

Wilson-Taylor was content to position Hinged in a close-up second place, hard on the heels of the leader for the first half of the race as the $7 chance Shaluna took the field along at an ordinary gallop.

Rounding the turn, Hinged moved up alongside Shaluna with Wilson-Taylor sitting with a handful of horse and once Hinged got the green light from her rider it was already ‘race over’ a long way out with the 3.75 length margin of victory emphasising just how dominant Hinged was in the home straight.

Nolan handling of Hinged has been close to perfection. The filly won her first two career starts (both over 1200m) and she was then just touched off in the last stride in her third start when stepping up to 1350. Another second place followed, again by the narrowest of margins … both of those races were decided by the bob of a head … but she was soon back on the winning path having now secured three wins in a row … twice over 1350 before adding a 1600m win to her list of credits with that win on Saturday.

“She has just been a good filly to train right from the start,” said Nolan. “We’ve never had one issue with her.

“We came her today and decided to claim with Kyle (Wilson-Taylor) who is riding really well … so we took the 3kg off. That’s the easiest she has won since coming down here. She is getting better with racing. She is learning her craft and doing better.

“It is sort of onwards and upwards with a filly like this. She has just done a wonderful job for the stable.

“I’m pretty sure we will want to run her on Weetwood day in the Guineas because she will be a three-year-old then. We will want to have a go at that because it is on our main day (in Toowoomba). So, whether she has a short break now and comes back for that … we’ll just see.”

*The day was not all bed and roses for Wilson-Taylor. While it had started off with that memorable moment with Hinged, the ending was not what he was after.

An extract of the Stewards’ Report for the last race reads: ‘Apprentice K Wilson-Taylor, rider of Roman Aureus, had his licence to ride in races suspended for a period of 14 days under AR132(7)(a)(ii) to commence midnight 3rd August up to and including midnight 17th August 2021 for use of the whip on six occasions prior to the 100 metres, one more than permitted.’

The heavy weight of the penalty imposed was because stewards deemed Wilson-Taylor a multiple whip rule breach offender.

Wilson-Taylor’s master Lindsay Hatch, who has previously been instrumental in helping to guide Baylee Nothdurft career (Nothdurft last season’s Metropolitan Premiership while still an apprentice) believes Wilson-Taylor has what it takes to go very far in his profession, but would prefer the hype surrounding his progress not to be there as he believes ‘probably hasn’t helped him.”

The old formula of working hard and keeping your feet on the ground applies as far as Hatch’s teachings are concerned and that good advice will never go out of date.

Learning too is an obvious aspect that every young rider needs to continually work on and Wilson-Taylor’s suspension will serve as a sharp reminder to him of that fact moving forward but, that said, he has so many positives going for him that the steepness of his trajectory is in his own hands.

One thing is sure though … results-wise, there can be no argument that Wilson Taylor’s rate of progress has been very impressive indeed!

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