KERANG-based trainer Donald Hird has only won a single race this season – but he picked the right one to do that.
On Saturday, his six-year-old gelding Rutilant took out the $20,000 Balranald Cup after a well judged ride by veteran NSW hoop Cameron Quilty.
It is a remarkable comeback story. After the Hird family bought the horse from Sydney’s Freedman stable as a second-hand runner, it would take them the better part of two years to get it back in racing condition.
Hird said the horse had a badly affected hoof which had to be treated, regrow and even then required a specialist farrier to get it shod right.
“It had a severe crack in the hoof, but as it was family owned we knew what we were in for and were happy to put in the effort,” he said.
“But now we have got him right and he has started paying us back a bit.”
He would want to. Perseverance often does pay off, but sometimes it doesn’t come too cheap.
In December 2021, the horse won over 1600m for the Freedmans at Warren in NSW. Its next win would not come until May this year, at Echuca. Since then it has been thereabouts in several starts before turning it on at Balranald at the weekend.
Hird said the horse had no great turn of foot, but at Balranald, Quilty timed his run to perfection.
“The pacemaker certainly dragged them along and they had to do a bit of work, and then Cameron had to make a decision about whether to go earlier than we might otherwise have liked, or try a drag race down the straight,” he said.
“But he really grabbed a winning break as they straightened, and even though Nathan Hobson’s Don’t Tell Sheriff was winding up, they were never going to bridge the gap before the post.
“He started at 9/1 and I was on my way to put $50 on him when I realised they were in the gate and about to jump so I didn’t quite get there,” he lamented.
“We thought he would go pretty well but weren’t sure he could win, and at that price neither were the other punters.”
Hird is now setting Rutilant for a return to Echuca on Melbourne Cup day because he said the horse runs a little better the Victorian way.
While Nathan Hobson would have been disappointed with a second in the cup, in the next race his veteran Wayfarer got up to take the last of the day, leaving Craig Weeding’s Big Day Out almost three lengths adrift.
Although Weeding would prove the star of the meeting, combining with jockey Justin Stanley to take out the first three races on the card, and then the duo picked up two seconds in the other three races.
