Long wait for Easter Handicap success worth while

Press, 13 April 1987, Page 30

Long wait for Easter Handicap success worth while

Special correspondent Auckland One of New Zealand’s most successful trainers, Jim Gibbs, has had to wait a long time to collect an Easter Handicap at Ellerslie;, his win with Field Dancer came 20 years, almost to the day, after he went so close with Super Count. Nowadays in association with Roger James (though the partnership is soon to end), Gibbs had not long been training when he produced an outsider in the betting, Super Count, for second to another outsider, Valiant Rebel, in the Easter Handicap of 1967.

There was very little in it, just a long head. Valiant Rebel, trained by Pat Mcllroy, now living in retirement at Takanini, was at odds of 24 to one and

Super Count bad even less betting support. That was well before the advent of quinella betting — what the dividend would have been on the two is anyone’s guess.

The finish in Saturday’s $150,000 Bayley’s Easter Handicap Stakes was every bit as close with Field Dancer edging out Star Pride and Arctic Wolf, the placings of the other two being changed, quite predictably, after the judicial committee inquired into alleged interference near the finish.

The three horses came into the last 150 metres packed together and wide on the track. Continuing to' go straight, on the inside of them, Star Pride might well have won. As it happened she veered

out, hampering Arctic Wolf, the middle of the three, and at the same time losing her own slight advantage. The committee took little time to adjudicate on the matter and, as well as changing the judge’s second and third placings, suspended Star Pride’s apprentice rider, Brendan Sargent, up to and including April 15. Sargent was having his first ride in an Easter Handicap at Ellerslie, as was Field Dancer’s rider, Michael Coleman, aged 17, an apprentice employed by Gibbs and James who won considerable sympathy towards the end of last year when he broke a wrist in a race fall and, with the connections opting, reasonably enough, for experience, lost the rides on the stable’s champion, Tidal Light.

Gibbs assured Coleman he would not be long getting the opportunity to Win a really big race. When the chance came oh Saturday the youngster made the most of it, keeping cool though having to go so wide, and drawing everything from Field Dancer in a very testing last 150 metres. The Gibbs-James partnership, which is having such a wonderful season, will break up at the end of this month with James striking out on his own. Gibbs’ new foreman will be Lance Noble, the young man who attended Field Dancer on Saturday. Field Dancer, which had an exasperating run of minor placings in the big three-year-old races last season, then had to be rested with a heart strain, racked up four wins in a row with the Bayley’s

Easter and will go for a fifth in the weight-for-age TVNZ Stakes, over 2000 metres on the second day of the present Auckand carnival on Easter Saturday. A bay, gelded after his three-year-old racing, he is by Star Way from Field Nymph and is raced by Mr Nelson Schick who bred Field Nymph, by Northfields, and stands Star Way at his Windsor Park Stud. Field Dancer, Star Pride and Arctic Wolf were out on their own at the finish, allowing none of the others much excuse though it must be said two or three — perhaps Trocane and > Magnitude, in particular — were unsettled by the going which, after further overnight rain, had become very soft. Trocane settled back of mid-field, as usual, and was unable to do much more when asked for an effort with some 800 metres to go. Magnitude kept in close range of the leaders, Hassendean and Arctic .Wolf, to the 600 m and gave ground quickly soon afterwards. The track conditions accounted for one-of the two late. scratchings, Cosmetique. The other late withdrawal was Lu, Which became suddenly and seriously unwell, scouring badly, after arriving at the course. The way Catering King won the other race of the ; T.A.B. double, the 1200 m Singapore Trophy, .’ suggested that given his chance he might have made Field Dancer and the rest race hard to, keep him out of the Easter Handicap finish.