Handsome Heir enters Cup calculations

Press, 10 November 1983, Page 27

Handsome Heir enters Cup calculations

JEFF SCOTT

By

Handsome Heir enhanced his prospects as a lightweight chance for the $75,000 New Zealand Cup on Saturday when he beat a moderate field in the South Australian Jockey Club Handicap at Riccarton yesterday. However, he will have a change of jockey for Saturday’s big staying test. David Walsh, who rode him yesterday, has a prior engagement for . the North Island-trained Short Stops, while Chris Johnson will take the mount of Handsome Heir for the Cup. Handsome Heir was

rewarded for some fine placed form yesterday, and is now fully realising the early potential he showed before he became something of a barrier rogue and was eventually placed on the schooling list earlier this year. “We began tying him in the barrier and kept playing race recordings — he’s good as gold now,” his Riccarton trainer, John Bourne said.

“If it’s a fast pace in the Cup so he can settle, I think he will go a good race,” Bourne said of the gelded son of Heir Apparent, which is also likely to contest the Avondale and Auckland Cups over the next two months.

“Everything went right for him today — he’s always a chance, he’s such a nice horse,” David Walsh said of Handsome Heir yesterday, which was given a nice run in midfield and ranged up to the lead at the 200 m. Lord of the Dance, another lightweight chance in the New Zealand Cup, produced a storming late run to get up for second in the hands of his Cup rider, John Dowling.

Dowling felt he probably could have won yesterday if he had ridden Lord of the Dance before. His chances were not helped when his whip snapped while the horse was responding well. “It wasn’t a strong field today, but I suppose he’ll have a lightweight’s chance,” Dowling said when referring to his mount’s chance for the Cup.

Seafarer, after racing in midfield, appeared as a danger at the 200 m, but could not round off the effort, being nosed out of second place, with El Toro doing his best work at the finish for fourth.

Charles Beaufort, the topweight, pulled hard in the fifth line and battled on for seventh. He is unlikely to run in the New Zealand Cup according to his rider, Ali Robinson.

The second favourite, Isle a Gree, was in midfield early, drifted back and “never fired” according to his rider, David Peake. A start for him in the Cup on Saturday was in doubt after his run yesterday.-