Alberjon too good

Press, 24 October 1989, Page 42

Alberjon too good

Southland correspondent Alberjon and Jan Cameron combined to take out the $20,000 Centennial Gore Cup yesterday. “I hope my specialist in Christchurch doesn’t get to hear about this,” Cameron said after landing Alberjon an emphatic winner.

On her own admission, Cameron is not supposed to be riding. She is scheduled to visit her medical specialist on November 2 for further detailed analysis of complications she is suffering as a result of her broken left leg of two years ago. Evidently, site has two

hairline fractures of her shin bone and the fibia is further damaged. Injuries sustained in the initial accident while handling a young horse two years ago are causing some stress in the lower regions of the leg.

A further accident at the training tracks six months later has presented more problems for Cameron, who had not ridden since the Ashburton fixture early last month before resuming on a spectacular note on Alberjon yesterday. Torn thigh muscles were a result of the second mishap, and her Career was also further frustrated by problems associated with dog bites. Until last week, she had resigned herself to the fact that she was sidelined from race riding until at least visiting her specialist on November 2. However, when her employer, Tony Prendergast, was unable to engage a suitable rider for Alberjon yesterday, Cameron made her services available. She tried herself out on the gelding in work last Wednesday. As it transpired, she enjoyed an armchair ride on John Prendergast and Alister McDonald’s seven-year-old, tracking the pacemaker, Free Call, and never having to leave the fence. Alberjon spurted clear at the straight entrance and won easing down by three lengths. Cameron is adamant she will not ride again on raceday until she learns more from her specialist as to the extent of her leg injuries. She stressed that yesterday’s mission was very much a "one-off case in a stable emergency.” Messrs McDonald and Prendergast bought Alberjon at the South Island sale, in Christchurch, and took their Southland

friend, Bert Crooks, into partnership in return for grazing the horse and caring for him on his Longbush property, on the outskirts of Invercargill. Alberjon actually started once for the partners from the Invercargill stable of Cecil Beckett, who trains for Mr Crooks. As Mr Prendergast wished to have the horse trained nearer to home, in Canterbury, Mr Crooks opted out of the partnership on his own happy accord and Messrs McDonald and Prendergast placed him with Lyn and Tony Prendergast. “I am very happy for Alister and John, as we are still great mates,” Mr Crooks said after the race in which his own solidlysupported representative, Miss Madonna, was a lack-lustre tenth. Alberjon, when ridden by Grant Davison, was a respectable third behind Walk Up and Sovereign Court on the first day, on Saturday, and, as expected, stripped an even sharper runner yesterday. He has now won nine of his 49 starts and been 15 times placed for $71,575 in stakes. Cameron has won five races on him — in fact, all of his open status successes. The Jockey Club Handicap, of 2000 m on the second day of the cup meeting at Riccarton, beckons Alberjon, which is rated as being “a tick below the top and a country cups horse,” by parttrainer Tony Prendergast. Alberjon is also a qualified hurdler. “I have always felt he is a little below the good cup horses and I have been reluctant to run him in good races at Riccarton because of that,” Prendergast said. Sovereign Court, the runner-up in the Gore Cup on the first day, backed up creditably, finishing genuinely from four back on the fence for his second. “A good run — every chance and no problems,” Russell McAra, his rider, said. “He strikes me as a particularly nice horse who keeps grinding away well.” Trainer Ross Beckett will run Sovereign Court in the Benson and Hedges Cup on the first day of the cup carnival at Riccarton on Saturday week. Even if he won that feature, he would still be eligible for the 2500 m Shirley Lodge Otaio Plate on the third day of the Riccarton carnival.