ADMONISH MAKES IT TWO FROM FROM TWO

By Graham Potter | Wednesday, October 11, 2023

A ride for champion trainer Chris Waller is invariably a good ride. A winning ride for Chris Waller is invariably a good result for the jockey in terms of opening up future riding opportunities for the stable … so you can score one for jockey Mark du Plessis with his success on the Waller trained Admonish in a BM65 Handicap over 1200m at Ipswich on October 11.

This win meant that Admonish remained unbeaten in two starts, having won on debut, over the same track and distance, back in May.

That debut win came after no less than four official trials from December 29, 2022 to May 8, 2023. The daughter of Astern was then given a further five months away from race action before coming out for this, her second career start … so, clearly, she has been very much a work in progress.

But that work … and the patience involved in the process … is paying dividends.

Admonish, who came into the race as an emergency acceptor, but as the second favourite at $4.80 with Du Plessis riding her for the first time, went back to second last in the ten horse field shortly after the start.

Admonish did save ground along the rail in the first half of the race, but that left him facing a wall of horses in front of him on straightening, with still some three lengths to makeup and trapped, for the moment at least, in limited galloping room.

Du Plessis angled marginally left as he tried to line up a gap which he could attack, but time was fast running out.

Admonish was in sixth place, still those three lengths back, when some daylight appeared in front of him, but it still looked like too little too late at that stage with Admonish seemingly having to produce something special to win from there, particularly as an inexperienced horse caught in heavy traffic.

And then Admonish showed why he could be a force to be reckoned with moving forward.

Not only was he brave in taking a tight path between runners, but his explosive acceleration essentially made light work of the considerable task at hand, albeit that he still had to be hard ridden to the line to keep his unbeaten record intact by a 0.20 length margin.

Two wins from two starts. You can’t argue with that!

More articles