NO Fuss. No muss. No way. Absolutely no way – horses that miss the jump by four lengths in a 1300m dash don’t win.
Except in the movies.
Especially when they don’t even jump.
Instead Harry Coffey’s No Fuss in the $55,000 Sportsbet Feed Handicap half fell but mostly walked out of the gate, barely in time to see the rest of the field disappearing down the track at Sandown Hillside on Wednesday afternoon.
And looked set to stay there as the field kept going like the clappers while Swan Hill’s Coffey simply tried to tack onto the rear of a very stretched out race.
With 500m to go he was still last, coming out of the back bend and nothing had changed – although second last was within reach.
But as the straightened Coffey and No Fuss kept on coming, first cutting to the rail on the bend and then threading through the backmarkers to pop up behind Ethan Brown on the heavily back favourite Kalkallo just as he started making his move.
Providing No Fuss with a perfect tow back into the race but still looking the horse least likely.
And just as Brown was extinguishing the run of the well supported Summer Flame on his left, he forgot to look right, where Coffey was staging what the race caller described as a “paralysing run” to snatch victory by a nose.
At $12.30 thank you very much in its first start this prep, after the four-year-old Kiwi gelding won its only other Australian start on the synthetic surface at Ballarat seven months ago.
“Once he missed it like he did, in this sort of field, I thought ‘oh, he’s going to have to be pretty good to win now’,” Coffey confessed post-race.
“I didn’t think defeat, I just thought now my job was to make sure he had the smoothest possible run, first outing back at the races, and just make everything nice for him.
“But as the race eventuated we just built momentum the whole way and ended up landing on Brownie’s back when it mattered and then came off and he surprised me with how he was able to round the race off, win and fight for it at the end after doing so much wrong at the beginning.
“So a very nice effort and I would say he is worth following after that.”
Coffey said he had only previously sat on No Fuss a couple of times in track work before getting to trial him one day when regular rider John Allen was away.
“John had found this fella when I was out injured with a broken wrist and really after that he didn’t let anyone else near him,” he said.
“Fortunately enough for me today John was suspended, so I got him back for the day, but John really likes the horse and has done a lot of work with him.
“And it was important he came to the races today for a good experience because he is still learning and still green. I thought it was a really good effort to put the race away like that.
“And I daresay John would have been hoping he would run second so he could get back on him next time.
“I think going forward that 2000m would be within his range – but you still wouldn’t want to rush him as he is still very green.
“But it looks as though over time he should be able to stretch out further and there should be some fun to be had then.”
