Phillips may ride Vice Regal this week

Press, 11 October 1976, Page 18

Phillips may ride Vice Regal this week

Special correspondent Auckland

A Hawera jockey, G. A. Phillips, is likely to be the replacement for G. R. Edge on Vice Regal in the Wellington Guineas next Saturday. Edge, who is under suspension, recommended Phillips to Vice Regal’s owner-trainer, J. W. Campin, making good the point that the Hawera rider is the only other jockey who has experience of the colt.

Not that Vice Regal should take much handling. Edge, who knows him so well, described him after Saturday’s win in the Great Northern Guineas as a “wonderfuUy-natured” horse and he demonstrated well just how easy he is to ride. Edge went out for the Guineas with no thought of going to the front so early on Vice Regal. It was only after the first 200 or 300 m that he changed his mind and let Vice Regal take up the pacemaking. Edge said he had expected Zermatt to lead them. To Ms surprise Zermatt was restrained as were the other leaders. “They were all pulling hard,” Edge said. “If I had stayed where 1 was mv horse would have been doing the same so I let him go to the front. He was always travelling well afterwards." There was certainly no doubt of Vice Regal’s superiority. Attended briefly through the middle stages by Bireme, he drew out a length or so in front once past the 600 m and continued galloping smoothly right until the finish where he had two lengths and a half on Silver Lad and a trifle more on Mayo Mellay (third).

Bunvaro came fourth and Zermatt, after going altogether too keenly for his own good, was next. Stringbag took sixth place, Secret Show, miles below his best form, seventh, and Bireme brought up the tail. With none of their riders wanting to make the pace the three or four horses up front jostled through the first 400 m in a bit worse than 25 seconds. The way they were going, tightly packed, something had to happen and it did. nearing the 1000 m. Vice Regal, from tour wide, came across to take up the running, and Zermatt, on the inside, was all but stopped dead. As a consequence Edge was charged with careless riding and suspended by the judicial committee up to and including next Saturday — two riding days. The penalty would have been more, the committee indicated, except for Edge’s previous excellent record and the fact that the case was one of poor judgment rather than intent.

Zermatt suffered a check earlier, after some 200 m, when crowded by Bireme. The judicial committee found tMs was caused by N. C. Heslop, the rider of Secret Show, allowing his mount to shift inwards.

The committee took into account that Heslop employed some corrective measures but suspended him also for two riding days. As if the Incidents during the first 600 m were not sufficient excitement of the wrong sort, Silver Lad dived toward the outside rail some 150 m from the finish when clearly the only run-

ner with a chance against the winner.

SUver Lad would not have won In anv case but his having to be steadied back to a straight course enabled Mayo MeUay to run him to half a length for second.

Mayo MeUay, an odds-on favourite, was a disappointment and too far back always to have a chance. His rider, N. G. Harris, said the colt seemed “unable to manage the right-handed way around.” “He galloped well enough around to the start." Harris said, “but back the other way was never balanced.**