Right path to first win

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32994, 14 August 1972, Page 8

Right path to first win

Carefully plotting a course in search of the best possible footing on a track that made demands on even the most accomplished winter performers, the Riccarton apprentice, M. Cohen, had a memorable first winning race ride on Regal Ration in the Qantas Plate at Riccarton on Saturday.

Cohen steered Regal Ration wide on the track on a patch of ground consolidated by the comings and goings of officials’ cars, and the

Bourbon Prince gelding came out on top by three lengths from the Hastingstrained Mill Court, which beat Lord Nelson just as easily. The 21-year-old Cohen made a comparatively late entry into racing as an apprentice. He was 17| years old when he became indentured to the Riccarton trainer, D. J. Thistoll, and he was 19 before he had his first race ride. His first winner belongs to the Thistoll stable, and this victory was some compensation for the failure—a gallant failure—of Regal Ration’s stable-mate, Quetta,

to win the Black and White Handicap.

Quetta finished fourth in the first leg of the T.A.B. double after taking a short lead close to home. He was worn down in a tight finish by Trelay, the veteran Superspan. and Lord Nelson’s half-brother, Hay Burner, in one of the more memorable finishes of the meeting.

Trelay won his first race at Riccarton just over four years ago, and on each return visit from Wingatui he has toiled consistently and, on most occasions rewardingly for members of the White family, of Omakau, Central Otago. “We’ll be back for another crack at the New Zealand Cup in November; here’s hoping our luck changes this year,” Mr J. W. G. White, the senior partner in the ownership of Trelay, said on Saturday. Trelay was runner-up in the 1970 and 1971 cups, each time to his stable-mate, Princess Mellay. The 12-year-old Superspan

ran probably his best race at' Riccarton on Saturday. Mr, C. H. Wallis’s Edenbridge; gelding is no great shakes; when the tracks firm, but' when he gets footing to his j liking he can be a formidable adversary. Hay Burner was also third in the corresponding race, won by Quetta, last year. “He was pulling his head off: nearly all the way. and that' didn’t help us any,” said his rider, M. Thornley.