JONES CONTINUES THE SURF THE WAVE OF SUCCESS

By Graham Potter | Saturday, January 6, 2024

The Kurt Goldman trained Art’s Object, who drifted from $41 to $51 in the betting, make a mockery of his starting price and a mess of the bulk of his opposition when he romped home under a sparkling ride by Angela Jones to land first prize in the $250 000 TAB The Wave, the main feature at the Gold Coast on January 6.

Jones has been in the saddle in Art’s Object’s last five starts and, as such, she has great insight, both into Art’s Object’s lead-up to the race and the way the big race itself panned out.

“I wouldn’t say she has progressed, but I knew at her two most recent starts that she wasn’t giving all that she had,” offered Jones. “She showed early on that she was a nice horse but, just in her last couple, she was just going around.

“She ran second in her last start leading into The Wave, but that was in a weak grade, and I felt she was just getting to the top of the straight and pricking her ears. She wasn’t giving me anything. She kept seeming to repeat the same run ... so I said to Kurt, we’ve got to change something up.

“We were just worried we were going to over-do it a bit with blinkers, so they decided to put the visors on her ... and they just did the trick.

“She came out ... put her head down ... went to sleep ... and then, in the second half of the race, I was sort of waiting for her to stop travelling, but she was just travelling better and better.

“She just loomed up and I still thought she might do the same and pick her ears when she got to the front but she didn’t.

“The whole run ... the further they got, the stronger she was travelling.

“The visors played a big part, but I think her home track made a big difference as well ... particularly the fillies and mares, I think are more confident on their home track.

“I don’t think she loved it last time at the Sunshine Coast whereas at the Gold Coast she felt a whole lot more confident than I had ever felt on her.

“It was also great that I’ve had an uninterrupted, good association with her because she is probably a horse who needs that understanding.

“I know a lot of people didn’t think she had it in her ... the price told you that ... but we did know she had it in her.

“We just had to figure it out.”

The four-year-old chestnut mare is now a four time winner from seventeen starts with $444 413 banked in prize-money.

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