IN racing you can be as crazy as you like – so long as you win.
And finally, for Swan Hill trainer Nathan Hobson, his four-year-old mare Crazy Sheriff behaved normally to take out the $27,000 bet365 Odds Drift Protector Maiden Plate (1454m) at Kyneton on Thursday.
For a horse with so much potential, even Hobson admitted the win seemed to have been a long time coming.
He said while there were no excuses for her previous start, he knew the mare wasn’t far away.
“My track rider is really confident we can win – but she’s a lot more confident than me,” Hobson said before the race.
“You’re never really sure, but as I said, she’s going a lot better this time in, her manners are certainly a lot better.”
“She deserves a win at some stage.”
Hobson also explained why a number of horses in his stable have the word Sheriff in their names.
He said they try and name all their home-breds after his mother Rhonda – aka the Sheriff. The stable currently have five “Sheriff” horses in work.
“She has been hard going (he means the horse, not mum) but this time in all her runs have been full of merit,” Hobson said.
“Unfortunately Madison (regular Nyah West jockey Madison Lloyd) is sick today so Jarrod Fry is having his first sit on her and see how we go.”
As the horses were leaving the yard on Thursday, Beautiful View was still the favourite with punters coming for Crazy Sheriff closer to the jump.
Once they got going, stand-in jockey Jarrod Fry clearly knew what he was doing with the horse, keeping her handy and well placed throughout.
Crazy Sheriff led them down the straight and then under pressure, as the challenges came, found one more gear, surging late to the line.
And the first post-race words out of Hobson’s mouth were: “I’ve just had the Sheriff ring, so she’s happy”.
Then he showed his gratitude by thanking all the people who had helped make it happen.
“A big thank you to Connie Richardson, my track rider, she does all the work on Crazy, she’s my only track rider, although Madison has been coming up from Ballarat and doing some gallops and riding her, so thanks to her as well,” Hobson said.
“Connie’s done a great job with her this time in, she’s much more relaxed, she was a complete lunatic early days, but she’s a lot better now.
“She really is a bit funny, you’ve got to bring her late into the yard and then get her straight out, and the barrier boys do a good job with her as well.
“And it was a really great ride by Jarrod, too.
“Her runs have been good, she had never been beaten far and she’s a big, nice type of mare and hopefully she can progress.
“Maddie’s manager rang this morning to say she was crook – she’s done a lot with this one and just wasn’t here when the horse finally breaks her maiden.”
Fry says his job was made much easier after an equally early morning call from Lloyd.
He says she warned him “the horse is a bit quirky”.
“But Maddie was good enough to give me a bit of a rundown on the horse this morning,” Fry said.
“The mare certainly seems to be coming into her own now and deserved the win as she has been pretty consistent.
“And she did respond when I asked her for that extra effort, so it was a deserving win.”
On Sunday, Swan Hill jockey Harry Coffey was in action at Ballarat – and after his first three rides of the meeting were scratched he was looking to make a point.
In the $35,000 Porter Plant Handicap he saddled up red-hot favourite Subrising for Nigel Blackiston’s stable – giving the horse its second career win.
“It’s been a while since I had a ride for Nigel and it’s good to remind him that I ride OK,” Coffey said.
“The awkward draw in barrier one was not a problem as Nigel was really good about it.
“Sometimes when you are riding horses which look like the outstanding chance in the race, and then you are drawn in, there’s a lot of panic from the people in charge.
“But Nigel was really good, and he said you can’t help the gate and you can’t help the speed, so ride the horse and if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t.
“So once you get that scenario you usually ride them all right.”
And he did.
His last ride of the day was scratched.
