SWAN Hill racing swept downstream to Mildura this week and stole the show.
Trainer Con Kelly’s Smart Alick proved to be exactly that, running off with the $27,000 Sunraysia Daily Handicap while the favourites were too busy watching each other.
And then jockey Harry Coffey celebrated some recent good form by turning on a spectacular display of riding, taking out the first two on the card and three of the first four.
But for Kelly the victory was vindication after the horse’s disappointing fourth at Swan Hill two weeks earlier (behind three other local horses).
With Alana Kelly in the saddle, the eight-year-old gelding was midfield in Monday’s 1000m scamper when the last turn came up and the rest of the horses simply peeled off – some almost heading for the car park.
While the more fancied The Wayfarer (trained by Swan Hill’s Nathan Hobson) and Babayka looked set to fight it out, Kelly clung to the rails and slipped right by the pacesetters to win by a length, going away.
“I was very pleased with the win today and after Alana had taken him down the rail at Swan Hill she had a pretty good idea of what he was about,” Kelly said.
“She stuck to her guns when the field opened right up at the corner, leaving no one in doubt why this was the ride of the day as well.
“Although he didn’t start favourite, he was well supported, and anyone who had seen the Swan Hill run would have been expecting him to go well.”
That said, Kelly said he did have to go to some lengths just to get his horse to the barrier.
He describes Smart Alick as a “bit of a rat” in that he gets anxious before a race and at Swan Hill had nearly pulled the clerk of the course from their horse.
This time round, Kelly had the gelding led onto the track away from the rest of the runners and mounted there.
“Once he gets onto the track with the rider he is fine, and by the time he gets into the barrier he’s all business,” Kelly said.
He has the 50-start veteran entered for next week’s Warrnambool carnival but said he is a long way down the order – the same goes for Outpour, which is also entered.
“You never know, even though there are a lot of nominations,” Kelly added. “If either one even makes it as an emergency I’ll go down because I have seen a lot of scratchings there before, depending on the weather and the fields.”
While Kelly was making the most of his horse’s win, Coffey was becoming a primetime TV star on racing.com post-race interviews – every time you looked at the screen he was back in front of the cameras.
And in classic Coffey style, he made all three wins heart stoppers – combined they barely added up to a length.
In the first – the $27,000 Mildura & District Real Estate Maiden Plate over 1000m – what looked like being a walk in the park, with aptly named Celebration, nearly went very wrong.
“It was like trying to find gears at the traffic lights, I just couldn’t get her to go at the end and she got stuck in neutral in the last 100m,” Coffey explained.
“She had dashed up to them really well, and put the race to bed early, but became a bit worrying late.
“If I had my time again I probably would have waited a bit longer because she’s obviously got a very good, sharp turn of foot but she can’t sustain it for a long way.
“The horse in front of me was just in a bit of an awkward spot, so I just used her to sort of get around and put the race to bed and catch the leader without momentum – but it nearly brought me undone and I nearly got caught on the line.”
Back in the winner’s circle 30 minutes later with Coronation Drive, after the $27,000 Nick Burke Plumbing Maiden Plate, Coffey agreed he had just completed “two tight wins”.
“It would have been even nicer if we could have won a little more easily in this one, but he got the job done,” he said.
“He’s a bit of a dorky fella, which I think showed at Sandown recently when his jump was a bit average and when I got some cover on him he got completely lost.
“Whereas today we had him on the job and put him outside the leader, although he was still a bit wayward at times.
“But he got the win and that’s what keeps me in my job.”
In the $27,000 Mildura Plumbing Plus Laiden Plate over 2000m, Coffey said an awkward draw for You Oughta Know was offset by his three-year-old filly “leaving the machines really well – she actually nearly left me behind”.
“She had been standing there pretty quiet and sleepy, and I didn’t want to annoy her too much with getting out over 2000m but once they opened she was on the job and we got across quickly,” he said.
“I let a couple go and she was a bit keen coming down into that first corner, so I just elected to move onto the fence and give her the rail to follow.
“Sometimes horses relax a bit better when they’re down by the rail – although sometimes they don’t. It’s a 50-50 chance but she ended up relaxing until the fireworks came at the half mile when Fawkey (Sairyn Fawke on Dubai Legend) said: ‘I won’t be having any of this, let’s rock and roll’ and that opened things up and I was able to get out.
“And then she was really strong through the line.”
