Story by Andrew Mole.
Nathan Hobson might have saved his best until the last at Swan Hill races on Tuesday.
And it wasn’t just because he was the only local stable to win one of the eight-race card in very warm conditions.
Because his horse Oberland didn’t just save his best for the last – the eight-year-old gelding had been saving his for 808 days before finally showing a glimpse of his true character and storming to success in the $35,000 BusBiz BM64 over 1200m.
The turf veteran last won a race on December 1 at Morphettville – way back in 2018.
When Oberland ran his first race – at Gunnedah in July, 2015 – Madison Lloyd, his jockey this week, had just started high school.
But she ran an incredibly mature race, way beyond her experience, when she found herself at the tail end of the 13-horse field – which is where most considered the 18/1 shot (who paid $19.70 for the win) belonged.
Except Lloyd; despite being blocked everywhere she turned in the early running, the rising star of country tracks never panicked and with the whole field in front of her she was able to see how the race was being run, picking her moments and openings before launching late down the outside of the track.
Even the race caller took time for a deep breath before expressing his amazement that the old man of the field was trying to “turn back the clock” and actually win a race.
Speaking after the unexpected victory, a delighted Hobson didn’t hesitate to admit Oberland had been a “pretty frustrating” horse to train after picking him up in the aftermath of the Darren Weir implosion.
“He’s a lovely horse but he just changes so much on his trackwork,” Hobson said.
“He ran a good second off his recent start at Bendigo, so he was showing he was about the mark,” he said.
“When you know the animal has the ability in him, but he doesn’t deliver, then it becomes very hard work.”
But it wasn’t all beer and skittles for Team Hobson and/or Oberland; as he was hampered by the run and he must have covered some extra kilometres by the time the field turned for home.
At which point Lloyd finally found room to move towards the centre of the straight and let her horse really start to stretch out.
Although it all appeared it would be too little, too late; even as Oberland burst into the clear and Lloyd asked him to give one last surge.
Shooting past pace maker and equal favourite My Boy Nick (the other short-priced favourite Zoutons appeared knocked up before fading badly on the firm track), Lloyd gave her ride a couple of taps of encouragement and cantered to the line almost three lengths clear.
It was an astonishingly slick ride and explained why Lloyd could not get the grin off her face as she returned to scale.
But Hobson said have a few words of advice for the management of his home track – he said a good four that improved to as much as a good two during the day was simply too hard for any trainer to be overly happy.
He said it could have been watered more to soften it for the meeting.
“It’s we trainers who will have to get up in the morning and see horses coming out of the stalls and see how many of them are showing the effects of the hard surface.
“I am already a bit concerned about how Oberland might feel – I already had a couple pull up short earlier in the day.”
But to ease his discontent, Malauka, Hobson’s other runner in the race, with Jarrod Fry in the saddle, put in its own late charge to finish second behind its stablemate.
