Gogong tops handicaps

Press, 4 July 1985, Page 30

Gogong tops handicaps

NZPA Melbourne Melbourne racing officials have obviously formed a higher opinion of the New Zealand jumper, Gogong, than that held in the gelding’s home country, judging by the handicaps released for the Grand National double. The Victoria Racing Club handicapper, Jim Bowler, made Gogong top weight in both races. He will carry 67kg in Saturday’s sAusts2,ooo Grand National Hurdle (4800 m and 68kg in the sAust62,ooo Grand National Steeples (5000 m a week later. The weight given to Gogong in the Grand National Steeples is 5.5 kg more than he carried to victory in last year’s race and a massive 7kg more than he had in his

last jumps race m New Zealand. Gogong’s last New Zealand run resulted in a threelength win in the Great Northern Hurdles at Ellerslie with the comparative featherweight of 61kg. At his previous run in Australia he carried 67kg to a 20-length victory in the Hiskens Steeples last July. Mr Bowler’s high assessment of Gogong may not be enough to stop the six-year-old winning back-to-back Grand National Steeplechases. Meanwhile, the news of the losing battle being fought by the trainer, Rick Hore-Lacy, to have the nominal favourite, Fast Food, fit for the National Steeples will have buoyed Gogong’s trainer, Leo Robinson.