My Turf: June 2009

Well it's less than 90 sleeps to the Kelt, time for Thad and his team to contravene the Fair Trading Act with their first odds set for this years contest.

I poke the borax at the odds but no doubt I'll couple a few into a few in the Melbourne Cup. Hey it's more fun than that Big Wednesday robbery and better odds too.

There s a good deal of Gimblett Gravels Syrah to be drunk yet, but this years contest shapes as one of the more even in a while.

A number of questions jump out at you. Will Mufhasa and Shanzero get the tough 2000m? Can Nom Du Jeu and Pasta Post overcome their unsoundness issues? Is Daffodil capable of doing a Legs and Princess Coup? And will the Aussie s travel or are they just there to get the kiwi punter?

Mufhasa tops the ratings and takes early favouritism at 7s. If you like him you are probably best to get on early as he should run well in the first two legs at his pet distances.

I don't begrudge his rating but I don't like the price given his risk at the trip. Already I can hear you saying what risk, he's a Pentire, ran a record in the Couplands Mile etc etc. I'll save my breeding treatise for another day but just add that I always have my doubts about a free running sprinter-miler type getting the tough 2000m at Hastings. Some pretty good milers such as Hello Dolly, Starcraft and Seachange tried and failed.

Nom Du Jeu and Pasta Post are recovering from injury and there must be a query about them standing up to the rigours of a Kelt campaign. I m also a believer than an Xcellent or Princess Coup aside, these sorts of contests are won by so little that litterally everything must fall into place: I thought Nom Du Jeu had all the cards fall his way last year - right age, preparation, track conditions, luck in running - but found 2 better on the day. I rest my case.

Prince Kaapstaad raced well in the first two legs last season but failed in the Kelt and based on his record seems to race best in a fresh state. I also have some doubts with him at 2000m. Sure he ran second in the Derby but three-year-olds can get away with that some year s because so many of their contemporaries don't. No doubt the stable will endeavour to get the mileage into him on the training track this year and go in a bit fresher. They don't loitter in the Kelt and I can see Prince Kaapstaad getting a tougher run near the lead than he had for instance in this seasons Easter.

Gallions Reach's form may have tappered off towards the end of the summer but he had a long spring and summer campaign during which he showed himself to be our leading middle distance handicapper before making the rare successful transition to WFA. I just have my doubts that his WFA form will stack up.

Fritzy Boy is another whose form tailed off this season after an auspicious start winning the Mudgeway. You would think that Alby McGregor has learnt a great deal from last years Kelt campaign and a wet spring would play into his hands. To the naked eye he had shown that the distance held no fears for him with his courgaeous third in the Derby behind Cest La Guere but the same case applies as with Prince Kaapstad. I tend to think Fritzy Boy has a tad too much brillance (excuse the pun) to be a genuine 2000m WFA horse.

Red Ruler is a bit of an enigma horse. At his best he is very good. His win in the Championship Stakes at 3 was close to the best performance I witnessed in NZ that season. I also thought his run for second in the Kelt last year was outstanding, been widder than Princess Coup around the home turn, taking a while to get balanced and not losing ground to her over the last 150m. One facet I've admired with John Sargent is his ability to keep his older horses in form and if he's out thought Red Ruler, this could be his race.

Another from the highly rated three-year-old class of 2007/08 is the slightly forgotten mare Boundless. I thought her run for fourth in last years Kelt had a lot of merit. It was well publicised that she had a light preparation after getting back from Oz late due to the EI protocols. Looking up my Kelt racebook notes from last year I had written " fractious and looks just underdone". Given a long spell after a brief and unsuccessful Oz campaign post the Kelt, the McKee charge has apparently come back a lot stronger. Mares have won five of the last 8 Kelts and at 15's the Van Nistlerooy mare is worth strong consideration.

The well named mare All In Black is indeed something of a dark horse. Her rise through the grades this autumn was dramatic and if she can improve again from 4 to 5 she could join Love Dance as the only winners of both the Kelt and Hawkes Bay Cup. John Wheeler sensibly put her away once the tracks deteriorated and she is in great hands to go one better than her half brother All In Fun who ran 2nd,3rd, 4th and 7th in the Kelt between 1994 and 1998.

Of the other older NZ horses I don't see Vosne Romanee up to WFA at 2000m, likewise Six O Clock News.

Just Call Me Sir aside, the Kelt for a while seemed a race for the older more seasoned horses. That was until the likes of the 4 yr olds Xcellent and the mares Legs and Princess Coup fresh from their NZ Oaks wins at 3, took the spoils.

So what chance the younger brigade continuing the momentum this year? A good chance I feel.

There s the most impressive 2000 Guineas winner Tell A Tale who showed his ability at 2000m with a gutsy second to Mac OReilly in the WFA International at Te Rapa before another game run for 3rd in the Derby as his season finale. Apparently the gelding had a few problems after Christchurch, nothing major I understand, but enough based on his performances to show that he had a strong constitution.

Impressive AJC Oaks winner Daffodil fits the mould of Legs and Princess Coup and is sure to have her admirers. As good as her Oaks win was I have my suspicions about the form out of that race plus and more convincingly, I feel she s best with the sting out of the ground.

Danzero mare Shanzero showed as much potential as any three year old in the country this season and her ability to unleash a powerful closing sprint should suit WFA racing. In the usual Collett fashion the rangy filly was not overtaxed and 1600m was as far as she went. In the same vein as Mufhassa I have some niggling doubts about her abilty to get a solid 2000m. She's from a Marauding mare which reeks speed and although her sire has left group one winners at 200m and further in Niconero and Fairway, they were out of Scenic and Cocky Golfer mares respectively, both staying orientated sires. The only way Danzero's group one females Danglissa and Dani Martine would have got 2000m was in a float.

Mill Duckie reminds me of one of those girls in the school choir with braces who you d see in the library at lunchtime but who you never paid much attention too; that was until you saw her at the school ball and your heart skipped a beat. Be it, wet or dry tracks, slow or well run contests, big imposts, the unfashionably bred big but plain filly just kept putting in. You never know if they are up to WFA until they try but she's so adaptable that the 41 to win is tempting.

I'd wait until first withdrawls later this month before getting too spruked on any of the aussies although you'd think the Freedman stable will have been buoyed in confidence by Dane Julia's performance at Te Aroha: they have a couple entered with the VRC Oaks place getter Miss Scarletti probably the pick of them on exposed form.

Instead of wandering down to the corner bottle shop tomorrow night and partaking in my current tipple, a Misiones De Rengo 2004 Carmenere I'll use the $ to take those multis through Boundless, Red Ruler and Tell a Tale.

Now I just have to sort out Melbourne..

I couldn't let the passing of Vincent O'Brien go by without a comment or three.

Probably the most poignant memory of any racing book I've read would have to be the piece in the 'Horsetrader' by Nick Robinson when one of the syndicate comprising Sangster, Magnier etc asks in the Keeneland bar where Vincent had disappeared too and the answer came back that he had gone back to look at the little Northern Dancer colt (The Ministrel). Further proded by the enquirer - whom must have had one too many Jamisons - if in fact that meant Vincent liked the colt, to which the comment came back "Like him, he bloody loves him".

O'Brien would leave no stone unturned in his search for thoroughbred perfection. A horrible cliche but someone light years ahead of their time.

Remarkedly O'Brien never had a string of more than 50 horses in work and often operated at around the 40 mark. Not for him the large satellite operations we see today. Vincent believed in care and attention and within reason this did not extend to delegation.

His Ballydoyle operation were the first to pad their boxes and lay straight gallops to take unnecssary pressure of a young horses legs.

But above all else O'Brien was a horse psychologist extraodinaire . Someone who got inside his 'flocks' minds and knew his horses better than they knew themselves. Some of the greats he trained such as Nijinsky and Alleged had more quirks than Michael Jackson yet he co erced them to become legends of the turf. I wonder though how he would have felt about trying to domesticate lions and tigers..?

About ten years ago I found myself at a wedding seated next to an elderly chap. Now having gone to a few weddings in my time as a single bloke I was well used to a bit of matchmaking. Looking around this particular wedding at a number of pretty single females, I begun to think pretty critically of my cousin whose wedding it was; that was before I discovered the elderly chap just happened to be Vincent O'Briens brother in law..

For the next three hours I got a wonderful insight into the life of one of the true greats, his love of nature, order and engineering.

Thank you Aunty Jill.