SWAN Hill trainers opted for blitz tactics on their home track on Tuesday.
A whopping 33 of the 71 starters for the eight-race card were locals but by the time the dust settled on the last they might have felt they had come up a bit short.
With just three wins.
But Nathan Hobson would have been one of the few with a smile on his dial after he bracketed the meeting with wins in the first and last. In between, Jane Duncan popped up with Testa Life in the fifth as the only other local whose colours weren’t lowered.
And while he might not admit it, Hobson himself might have been a little surprised by his first winner on the day.
Crank Sheriff had had nine starts before this one and had never run a place.
Yet the four-year-old mare, with Joe Bowditch in the saddle, exploded out of the gate in the $25,000 Vale Jack Styring Plate over 975m and treated the rest of the field with contempt.
It was a case of first race, first out of the barrier and first winner, with Bowditch almost a passenger as Cranky rubbed everyone’s nose in it with a four-length victory at the handsome odds of 12/1.
If that $10.70 dividend sounded good, stablemate Sheriff’s Lady survived a photo for third and paid an astonishing $12.10 for the place thank you very much.
Owner Ashley Hobson has taken the horse to town and back to country tracks and was happy to agree post-race Cranky had finally put in a good one.
He said it might have helped putting blinkers on the mare after she made a habit of travelling well during races and then getting lost a bit in the straight.
“We put the blinkers on to see if it would switch her on a bit and they certainly did the trick today,” Hobson said.
“Nathan reckons this prep she has sort of improved a lot and matured. We bred her at home and a lot of the family seem to be three or four before the penny starts to drop,” he added.
“So hopefully there’s a few more wins in store for her.”
Bowditch, who has ridden Cranky Sheriff at Moonee Valley, said she had “given a great kick with the shades on; but full credit to Nathan as she has had a few tough runs this time and has been knocking on the door, but he turned her out in immaculate condition today, she looked terrific before the race and raced accordingly”.
And racing accordingly was what was expected of Hobson’s Upper East Side in the lucky last – sent out favourite at 5/2 in the $25,000 The Woodys over 975m – and left it very late to do its best work.
Jockey Jordan Childs proved very patient as Hobson’s three horses in the race ran together through the early and middle stages of the dash for cash, before Upper East Side pushed almost to the middle of the track to crank up the engine and start motoring home, blowing right by the frontrunning Mount Mitty.
Hobson said he had told jockey and owners in the morning he felt the horse had really come on since its Bendigo run, when it finished fifth of seven on February 6.
“I told Jordie the horse would probably get back and then get strong and run over the top of them and it panned out that way,” he explained.
“He’s been very honest since we have had him, and hasn’t put in too many bad runs in, so he’s always thereabouts and you know what you’re going to get,” he said.
“And it was good to have Jordie come up to Swan Hill for the day.”
Because while Hobson’s double was a good day out, it was nowhere near as good as it was for Childs. Unlike the local trainers, he did blitz the meeting, winning four of the eight races.
Apart from his late winner for Hobson, Childs won on Crackhorn in the second, Mr French in the fourth and Fine Weather in the seventh.
Jane Duncan’s Testa Life was respected by punters, hovering in single figures before being sent to the barrier at 8/1, up against the well-backed, last-start winner Redjina, another Swan Hill horse making its first outing since winning at Ararat.
Second last on settling, behind a wall of locals, in a slow-run mile, it had an ace up its sleeve with local star jockey Harry Coffey on its back.
As they headed for home, Redjina looked a back-to-back certainty before Coffey came out so wide; he might have ended up in the carpark. But while everyone focused on catching Redjina, Coffey burst out from under the radar with 150m to go; having fully wound up the eight-year-old mare (and reigning Swan Hill horse of the year) and sailing under a very wet sail scorched down the outside of the field to run away with a welcome win for Duncan.
The owner-trainer said she picked up the horse on the internet, for not very much.
“We got her as an old mare, but she’s a great little mare and was named horse of the year last year, which was fantastic,” she added.
“And she had run two good races at Donald and hasn’t really been that lucky, and I was just hoping there’d be enough speed on today that she could get over them today, and I was thrilled.
“And it helps having Harry Coffey on board. I had lost Tahlia Hope, who could not make it, and was looking for a jockey and bumped into Harry by the pool and he said he didn’t have a ride in that race so that was a real bonus.”
