COUP RAISES HIS GAME - SCORES TWO WINS IN FEBRUARY

By Graham Potter | Thursday, February 24, 2022

The Michael Nolan trained Coup scored two wins in February, improving his record to seven wins from twenty-eight starts.

The first of Coup’s February successes came in a BM70 Handicap over 1300m at Toowoomba on February 5.
Coup came into this race on the back of a runner-up finish on January 26 and Michael Nolan certainly had the five-year-old gelding primed for this one, as evidenced by the fact that the son of Mahisara took no prisoners winning every bit as easily as the official three length margin suggests.

Starting second favourite at $3.30, Alex Patis pushed Coup out at the start, chasing around from his wide draw to be able to cross the field and forge his way into a clear lead.

Once there, Coup maintained a strong early gallop and stretched the field out going down the back stretch. Divine Roca ($7) was the runner closest to Coup and the latter managed to reduce the distance marginally between these two runners in the approach to the turn, but Coup then kicked away again on straightening and the Nolan trained runner already had the race result well and truly in his keeping early in the straight.

Naval Strike ($9.50), who came from well back, finished strongly to relegate Divine Roca back into third place.
______________________________________________________________________

After his win on February 5, Coup was back in action two weeks later with Michael Nolan electing to take Coup to a Metropolitan meeting at the Sunshine Coast where he contested a BM90 Handicap over 1400m.

Coup ran unplaced there, but he quickly returned to winning ways just five days later when he again won with supreme authority when taking out a BM70 Handicap over 1350m at Ipswich on February 24.

The betting boards put his Metropolitan race defeat in proper perspective and Coup was duly marked up as the $2.45 favourite for the event, and he absolutely justified his place at the top of the betting by romping home by no less than 4.30 lengths.

As in his previous win, Coup got no favours with the barrier draw, but again he made light work of that disadvantage with Jasmine Cornish, who was riding him this time, taking Coup into an immediate lead.

Again, as with his pervious win, Coup maintained a strong gallop up front all the way to the home turn. The $26 outsider Bobby Axelrod did try to annoy Coup early on, but he was a already a spent force in the sweep to the home turn, and it was left to Coup’s market rival, the second favourite Princess Tenko ($3), to emerge to lead the chase behind Coup in the home straight.

Cornish and Coup were in no mood to let anyone else into the race though and the Nolan runner left the rest for dead in the run home to score an emphatic victory.

Nolan has coaxed Coup to raise his game in recent times … this being his second win from his last three starts.

More articles