RACING Wairio wins mile at Wingatui

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32539, 24 February 1971, Page 10

RACING Wairio wins mile at Wingatui

(From Our Own Reporter)

DUNEDIN.

Wairio, once described by his Wingatui trainer, J. R. Dowling, as the worst boarder in the establishment —“He never stops eating”—paid for more than $lOOO worth of oats in winning the feature race at Wingatui yesterday.

Dowling rode the l Southland - owned Bell- 1 borough gelding to a, comfortable win over Libanson and Stormy Seas, but did not regard , it as a good trial for ] Trentham, and the trip ; north is in doubt. 1

Owned by Mrs E. and Mr M. P. Sheridan, Wairio is a renowned sluggard on the tracks, and makes even the efforts of the slowest novices in the stable look to be good. But there is something to admire about the race record of the five-year-old. Dowling gave Wairio plenty of time to find his feet in the small field yesterday. He eased him into a gap of two lengths at the rear, but had no trouble finding room to make progress without having to go wide. Early in the run home, Wairio was engaged with the favourite, Stormy Seas, in a tussle in the lead, and went ahead under more vigorous urgings. “He didn’t impress me overmuch when I asked him to go right through with his run,”’Dowling said later. RUN FOR SECOND But the Wingatui trainerjockey had nothing to concern him in anything put up by the opposition from the home turn. However, Libanson’s run for second was regarded as a good one by his rider, G. R. Heaton. “He almost fell in a slippery patch at the five furlongs and slipped again on the home turn,” Heaton said. The Australian - owned, Southland-trained Stormy Seas was backed down to a short price, but his lastfurlong run lacked the resoiution that distinguished his

early three-year-old performances. “No excuses at all—not good enough on the day," said Stormy Seas’ rider, B. L. Shaw. “I gave him a great show on the home turn, as he was on the bit and feeling pretty good then, but Wairio put him away pretty quickly.” The Washdyke-trained General Boy dropped away to fourth after making a likely run to the leading line on the home turn. # EFFECT OF THE GOING Aidershot, E. J. Didham’s mount, was hopeless in the ground and finished last, dropping away from the leading line when the race was

more than half over. While dropped back through the field he hampered Wairio for a few strides, but that was not to have any bearing on the result. The Riccarton trainer, L. D. S. Barr, was given special permission to scratch Funny Way -from the Wingatui Handicap after the first race on the card.

Barr explained to the stipendiary steward that his four-year-old, the open sprint winner on the first day of the meeting, is hopeless on rain-affected tracks, and would almost certainly have let down a small army of backers if he had been forced to run. I