High drama moments before I’m Henry wins Derby

Press, 24 January 1984, Page 22

High drama moments before I’m Henry wins Derby

From

J. J. BOYLE

in Wellington

The Wellington Derby yesterday was shaping up to be something of a toddle for the odds on favourite, I’m Henry, but there was high drama right in the shadows of the post when his jockey, Bob Vance, sat up on the plain Takanini gelding, allowing Jurango to cut dangerously into I’m Henry’s lead.

There was still a margin of three-quarters of a length between them, but Jurango’s late dab as the favourite lost momentum sparked an excited roar from the crowd. To all appearances Vance had taken the whole affair too casually. The action inspired his employer, Colin Jillings, to remark: “Isn’t he a larrikin?” However, Vance defended his action, one he said was forced on him because I’m Henry had stumbled. “I had to grab him up and in doing so I had to sit up on him.

The horse could have shied at something. He certainly stumbled, and there was nothing else I could do about it,” Vance said after this, his sixth Derby victory. Vance started his impressive list of Derby winners with Uncle Remus, which found the New Zealand and Wellington Derbys’ double easy in his brilliant second season campaign from the stable of Colin Jillings, which also houses I’m Henry. Vance scored a second derbys’ double on Isle Of Man two years ago.

This season’s New Zealand Derby was a close-run thing for the Entrepreneur gelding for there again Jurango got closest to him, and it was very close — only half a head. I’m Henry is owned by Bill and Mary Bates of Auckland. They purchased him for $30,000 from Mr Les Fisher, of Pukekohe, on the recommendation of the former South Island horseman, Alwyn Tweedie. These days Tweedie does much of his race riding in Singapore, but he was at Trentham yesterday and

was publicly thanked by Mr Bates for his acumen and persistence leading up to the purchase. I’m Henry was bred from a non-stud book mare, Ina Bahroo (by Bahroona), and he is ineligible to run in the A.J.C. Derby at Easter. He has a plebeian look about him to match his pedigree “flaw” but as Jillings observed yesterday he is a great trier with an efficient engine and that compensates for the fact that he “looks somewhat lonely without a cart.” The final piece of drama

in the Wellington Derby was playe dout with all but the winner and runner-up well off centre stage. Rotoma King, was seven lengths back third, yet two lengths better than Rich Brother (fourth). The big disappointment of the race was Riccarton’s Gaffa, which struggled in second to last. He never raised a decent gallop on a firm track and his rider, Grant Cooksley, was apprehensive about his chance when the My Friend Gelding did a cramped preliminary.