MEDICAL AUTOCRAT CALLS THE SHOTS. NIKAU SPUR DOES HIMSELF PROUD

By Graham Potter | Saturday, May 18, 2024

The theme continues ... find a reasonably well-bred, often lightly raced horse being released by a reputable stable, purchase it, often for a very acceptable price ... and kick on from there, many times to an early success.

Ok ... things are never that simple in racing. It is anything but an exact science, but when you work to a plan ... and refine it as you learn along the way ... you can tip the odds in your favour, as evidenced by the fact that you can now add the name of Medical Autocrat to that list of KO Racing’s successful purchases and the Corey and Kylie Geran’s stable honour roll of results with tried horses after the three-year-old son of Dundeel won on debut for the stable, taking out a Maiden Handicap over 1625m at Toowoomba on May 18.

Medical Autocrat raced four times for Anthony and Sam Freedman starting out at 1415m and going all the way up to 2100m, and, with his stout staying pedigree, the Geran stable set the gelding this 1625m target for starters.

Medical Autocrat, who started favourite at $2, only had one rival on the betting boards here ... the $3.60 chance Go Girl Go from the Tony Gollan yard. Only one other runner in the ten-strong field was priced under $14.

The number one barrier draw allowed Medical Autocrat to have the run of the race ... Karl Zecher getting the Geran trained runner well away at the break before settling into a perfect trailing position in third place, racing just less than two lengths off the leader as the field went down the back stretch.

Zechner was happy to hold his position on Medical Autocrat until the approach to the home turn where he confidently angled his mount out three wide to, firstly, range up to the two leaders shortly after straightening for home ... before putting them to the sword, striding away from all challengers over the final 200m to score every bit as emphatically as the official 2.80 length winning margin suggests.

It was a flawless, untroubled performance by both horse and rider.

Medical Autocrat was Corey and Kylie Geran's second winner on the card with Never Give Up having saluted earlier in the evening.
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Earlier in the day, at Doomben, the seven-year-old Nikau Spur showed his competitive edge once again, bouncing back from an unplaced finish in The Archer to claim a highly creditable third place in the Listed Member’s Handicap when stepping back up to 1600m (from the 1300m of The Archer).

Starting at odds of $51 from the second widest draw (barrier 12 out of 13), Nikau Spur was held wide throughout the running.

He raced some ten lengths off the lead for the first half of the race ... started making up ground wide out in the approach to the home turn ... cornered five wide still a little over six lengths off the speed ... before accelerating and running on as gamely as anything else, other than the $2.05 favourite Gringotts who was away and gone, having the race safely in his keeping long before the runners crossed the line.

When they did, Nikau Spur was a clear third ... a result which completed a very satisfying run for KO Racing and Team Geran.

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