It was a magical performance by Swan Hill trainer Nathan Hobson.
Take two horses to the same race on a cold winter’s day at Flemington – one of them starts at 70/1 and the other at 40/1.
Get the bolter to grab the lead early and go for broke, and while all the jockeys are watching the red and white colours in front of them, they are forgetting about the same silks at the back of the 16-horse field.
And like any good magician, before the audience realised what was happening, he had miraculously swapped the two around as Yulong Storm swept to the line to win the $75,000 LV Lachal Handicap by a very short head.
When you are paying $39.50 for the win (and Hobson conceded he might have had a little bit of that) it means your trainer has pulled another rabbit out of his hat, leaving the other jockeys, trainers and punters shaking their heads in amazement.
Hobson, however, was as cool as a cucumber.
He hadn’t been vocal about the horse’s chances, but last time the five-year-old gelding went down the famous Flemington straight (in September last year) it won by almost two lengths.
“I reckon its July 7 run at Sandown on a soft seven would have shown he was coming back to his best,” Hobson said.
“He came fifth, but it was a blanket finish and he was barely a length off the win, over 1300m,” he said.
The sectionals tell just how big a finish Saturday was – at the 800m he was 15th of 16; at the 400m there was no change.
Just 100m later the bolter Rock Tycoon was swamped; but anyone looking at the back of the field would have seen Newitt veering through the narrowest of gaps.
At the 200m there was a wall of horses across the field; but Newitt and Yulong Storm were really in the clear and really winding up; and with just 100m left the race caller finally saw him coming – and then going right past the leaders.
Newitt, who has ridden the horse to four of its six wins, was happy to agree Yulong Storm has been a pretty good horse for him.
“It just goes to show how good a trainer Nath is; he places his horses really well,” Newitt added.
“And this horse has a second wind down the straight – he was going to win that race a long way out, he just kept coming up underneath me,” he said.
“We were just relying on a little bit of luck to get out, and when he did; he accelerated nicely.”
Hobson said he already had Yulong Storm’s next race picked out – back at Flemington over 1100m in three weeks.
He is also preparing a small team for the Mildura Cup carnival starting on Friday Covid permitting.
And to complete a big day out for Swan Hill at racing headquarters, jockey Harry Coffey on Seiners Express took out the last of the day – a $135,000 three-year-old handicap over 1700m.
