Upset Riccarton winner may go to Melbourne

Press, 11 August 1980, Page 26

Upset Riccarton winner may go to Melbourne

By

J. J. Boyle

Mr Joe Brown, of Mosgiel, gives his horses training programmes rather like the ones he set himself in the days when he was a racing cyclist.

In ; three visits to Riccarton with his home-bred My Lisa ..Leigh . those programmes have. , paid off handsomely,-.

My Lisa Leigh overcame early setbacks in the run-1 ning, and finished at a great 1 rate in the hands of fhe ' Wingatui apprentice, Charlie 1 Brough, to win going away by half a length from Lamp- ; light Mr Brown, who races My i Lisa Leigh in partnership with his wife Marge, has his promising stayer entered for < the big spring cups in Melbourne. ! “I think my . horse Re- ; formed was a bit unlucky when he ran third behind 1 Dalrav in the Melbourne 1 Cup, and I have been wait-1

ing to get another stayer to take back to Melbourne,” Mr Brown said on Saturday. ' My Lisa Leigh has 47kg in the Melbourne Cup. and her part-owner and trainer will plan the mare’s spring programme with hopes of winning a race over a distance (from 2200 m up) that would qualify her for the big one at Flemington. Lamplight, a stablemate of Bymai, and a good second to My Lisa Leigh on Saturday, is also entered for Melbourne, but the New Zealand Cup will probably be her mission this year.

Firpo gave Riccarton a share of the cut-up by finishing third, inches behind Lamplight, and Tarbela and Good Way contributed to a spectacular finish in filling the next two positions, almost right up in line. London Trader pulled hard up front, leaving him without reserves for a middle distance. He finished seventh, just ahead of the favourite Belle Camille, which got bogged down in the deep stuff towards the inside.

My Lisa Leigh has won four races, each of them at the Canterbury Jockey Club’s headquarters. Certainly the most spectacular of her victories came on Saturday when she sped down the outside to triumph at odds of better than 100 to one in the Amalgamated Handicap, second leg of , the T.A.B. double.- ’■ ... >