Takanini trainers plunder rich Trentham prizes

Press, 31 January 1983, Page 22

Takanini trainers plunder rich Trentham prizes

By

J. J. BOYLE

The Takanini trainers. Colin Jillings and Ray Verner, met with spectacular success on Wellington Racing Club’s Oaks day at Trentham on Saturday. Their stable runners accounted for the New Zealand Oaks, the George Handicap, and the Terrace Regency Handicap, and a total of $93,250 in stakes. Jillings's winners were Rama (Terrace Regency Handicap) and McGinty (George Adams Handicap). Besides, Jillings saddled Ringtrue to run second to the record-breaking McGinty in the big metric mile. Which prompted one of Jillings’s well-wishers to remark: "Why didn’t you bring the stable dog along — there would have been a prize for him too!”

McGinty's record run of Imin 32.99 s in winning the George Adams Handicap crowned a day of spectacular racing.

Jim Cassidy struggled for words to measure the quality of the performance. “He is something else again — the best I’ve ever ridden," said last season’s champion jockey. Cassidy said McGinty was off the bit at the 600 m. “But when I clucked in his ear, and gave him one with a stick he bounded and charged like one of those tennis players, and before I quite realised it he had the others tied in knots."

Colin Jillings had been. confident McGinty would win, but he had not anticipated that the colt would slam his rivals in such style. Rich three-year-old races in Sydney in the autumn now beckon, but Jillings believes McGinty will need one more race before he moves across the Tasman.

Jillings plans to give McGinty his first race in Sydney in the Canterbury Guineas on March 5. then

probably the Rosehill Guineas a fortnight later. If the colt coms up to expectations in those races he will be pointed for the A.J.C. Derby. But if he shows distance limitations his programme could be reshaped with the Doncaster Handicap. a substitute for the Derby.

Rama's win in the Terrace Regency Handicap on Saturday in the colours of Mr Dennis Bishop, a retired building contractor, was achieved under careful rating by Nigel Tiley. She was an unlucky third in the corresponding race last year when ridden well down the field, and in cramped quarters at a vital stage of the race. On Saturday Jillings instructed Tiley to take her to the front from a wide barrier position, and gamble on no competition for the pacemaking. “No-one wanted to have a go at her in front, so she was

able to lob along quite relaxed. “If something had taken her on up front, it would have been much easier for those sitting behind her," Jillings said. “But the tactics paid off."

The Verner-trained Amrica finished at a great rate after getting clear of the ruck, but Rama held her out by three-quarters of a length. Jillings took Rama to Australia for the Sydney Cup last autumn, but the rangy Moss Trooper mare finished out of a place, and it was found later she had raced while affected bv a virus.

It is doubtful if she will be taken back to Sydney for a second tilt at the race this year.

“She’s a paddock-trained mare, which poses difficulties when you go to Sydney,” Jillings said on Saturday. “Besides I'm taking two colts over, and she might think she has been taken along for a love affair."