SEDUCTIVE SPUR AND WATERWORLD BOTH WIN FIRST TIME OUT FOR THE GERAN STABLE

By Graham Potter | Saturday, December 23, 2023

The Corey and Kylie Geran stable added two new winners to their stable honour roll when Seductive Spur won at Chinchilla on December 16 and Waterworld saluted at the Gold Coast on December 23.

Significantly, both of these runners were having their first race starts since relocating to the Geran stable.

Seductive Spur had come into the Geran yard from the North Queensland stable of Clinton Taylor as a two-time winner (over 1100m and 1000m) from eight starts.

The Geran’s had given Seductive Spur a trial on December 2 before setting her for race action in a BM50 Handicap over 1030m at Chinchilla where he got a 3kg weight relief, courtesy of the claim of apprentice Corey Sutherland, from the 62.5kg she was set to carry.

Seductive Spur started favourite at $2.50 with Easy Come ($3.60) on the next line of betting ... and it was these two main fancies who fought out a rousing finish, which the result difficult to pick as they finished wide apart on the track ... but, in the end, the photo showed it was Seductive Spur who had earned the win.

The Geran trained runner had settled in fourth place, a little over four lengths off the lead, as the speed went on early. At that stage Seductive Spur was racing some two lengths off his market rival Easy Come, who was in third spot, but that deficit came down to only a length in the approach to the home turn.

With Sutherland taking Seductive spur five wide into the straight and with Easy Come saving ground along the inside ... the battle lines were well and truly drawn between these two runners and they both pressed on with meaning, chasing hard all the way down the home straight before flashing through the line together.

Slower away than her main rival ... giving ground away mid-race ... covering more ground when racing wide on the turn ... the win translated into a very determined effort from Seductive Spur which was rewarded by putting her first win on the scoreboard in his first run for her new stable.
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A week later Waterworld was doing the same thing at the Gold Coast when taking out a Class 1 Handicap over 1050m after the Geran’s became the third stable to have Waterworld in their care.

The four-year-old had previously had nine runs for Peter Moody for one win (over 1100m) and five runs for Nathan Doyle (where his best results were two runner-up finishes) and he was six weeks between runs when he making his debut for Corey and Kylie Geran.

Waterworld did appear to face a task on two fronts.

Firstly, carrying the steadying burden of 60kg, Waterworld did have to give weight to all of his rivals (between 1kg and 7.5kg) and, secondly, he seemed very much up against the weight of popular opinion which had the Kris Lees trained Yamabushi starting at the restrictive odds of $1.95, suggesting he was a good thing.

Waterworld would start third favourite at $4.40.

It wasn’t the best of starts for Waterworld who, according to the steward’s report, ‘began awkwardly ... then bumped ... raced keenly in the early stages,’ but having an old pro like Michael Cahill in the saddle is worth its weight in gold in those situations, and the veteran rider soon had Waterworld back settled into a comfortable gallop going down the back stretch where the main fancy Yamabushi had taken up the running, intent on making every post a winning one.

It was a measured gallop by Yamabushi under Jasper Franklin though, and there were only four lengths covering the field as Yamabushi led the field to the home turn.

Cahill had to angle Waterworld out across several sets of heels on straightening, swinging all of five wide ... and, with Yamabushi putting in his kick at the same time on the inside, Waterworld suddenly had five lengths to make up once he had found clear running.

With 200m left to run, Yamabushi seem to have them all beaten, but Waterworld was only just warming up. He was still four-and-a-half lengths back at that stage, but was now really revving up his challenge, to the extent that he had cut the deficit to Yamabushi to just two lengths at the 100m, and was closing so fast that it became clear that Yamabushi would not be able to contain Waterworld’s strong finishing effort, even though he was carrying 4kg less than the Geran trained runner.

At the line, Waterworld had sealed victory by a 0,80 length margin.

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