Stablemates win Riccarton double for Sydney owner

Press, 7 February 1985, Page 30

Stablemates win Riccarton double for Sydney owner

By

J. J. BOYLE

Mr Albert Meo, a Sydney businessman and prominent racing owner, was pleased he made the trip across the Tasman for the second day of the Canterbury Jockey Club’s meeting at Riccarton yesterday.

His colour-bearers, Noble Boa and Briny Girl, carried off the two feature races and the T.A.B. double at odds of close to 75 to one. It was also a double for the Wingatui stable of Arthur Didham Sen. and his son, Les, and Les made a further contribution to a memorable day by taking the ride on Noble Note.

Noble Boa snatched a spectacular last-stride victory in the Steinlager Handicap, first leg of yesterday’s T.A.B. double and the T.A.B. trifecta event. He appeared to hold the! slimmest of chances 50 metres out, but barged through one of the narrowest of gaps and nosed out Ten Winks in the last stride. Ten Winks’s more

strongly fancied stablemate, Shazaam, was a head back third, and Riccarton’s Donizetti almost right in line fourth. “I had nowhere to go until 40 yards from the post, and had to use the stick in my left hand as I forced him through a gap alongside Cahir,” Les Didham said later. Les Didham was still uncertain when he returned to

the birdcage if he had won, but Paddy Busuttin, the trainer of both Ten Winks and Shazaam, had no such doubts. Busuttin watched the race from a lower deck of the judge’s tower, and was congratulating Les Didham before the judge’s placings were confirmed. Noble Boa cost Mr Meo only $2500 as a yearling and after he made the

purchase he inquired from Arthur Didham if there was anything wrong with the horse.

Didham did not think so,

but believes Noble Boa would have had an even stronger record by now only for a setback when he was campaigned in Australia.

Noble Boa is now eight, but “he’s getting better as he gets older, just like me,” Arthur Didham quipped, yesterday. Noble Boa, winner of the last two Invercargill Gold Cups, will now be prepared for the Dunedin Cup later this month. Ten Winks and Shazaam both ran up to their first day form in filling the next two positions behind Noble Boa yesterday, and Donizetti gave promise of an early win with a promising fourth, one achieved after coming from well down the field.

Gold Zam, the 2-1 fancy, was pegged back to fifth

after pacemaking. The veteran Miles Better never got into the race, beating only Julie’s Boy and Flying Ribot. Briny Girl, a winner against lesser lights on the first day of the meeting, took the step up a grade in style in the Jim Beam Handicap yesterday. She spurted from a trailing position in the straight and won in style by three lengths from Sea Fort, which beat Shady News by a head.

King Kaka did best of those in the top half of the handicap, making ground for a good fourth. He out finished Noble Note, which came to the front briefly up the straight, but quickly died on his run. Tim Lea, the win favourite, was a well-beaten seventh.