Hopefully Kanazawa, with Zac Lloyd using ground-level horsepower rather than reindeer flight, will oblige at Royal Randwick on Saturday for the “cuddle one for Christmas”, always the mantra of the last major meeting before Santa Claus lands while driving within the whip rules.
With the Randwick rail nine metres out, turbulence could be a problem for jockeys navigating from back in the field as well as the more rotund pilot in red and white, who has to arrive on time despite recent erratic weather patterns.
Zac Lloyd is in rare form.Credit:Getty
Of course the Villiers, justifiably retagged the Ingham, formerly lifted the final Saturday to a strong betting medium but is now run earlier, leaving the residue a more midweek class.
Trainers would focus on the Villiers to cover holiday exes. Beneficial lead-up races, for both odds and peak fitness, were employed. Should it come unstuck, the balm of the festival eased the pain. These days it’s upfront: win every race.
Kanazawa, a chance in the TAB Handicap, has been beaten at his last two starts but should be prime on Saturday with the dust of the controversial whip rule still settling after last weekend’s Flemington outbreak.
Following the dead-heat between Invincible Caviar and My Yankee Girl, stewards lodged a protest on behalf of Invincible Caviar. Blake Shinn, on My Yankee Girl, breached the whip rule with 27 strikes, 12 before the 100 metres where the limit is five. It’s the first time in 160 years in Victoria the rule has been implemented.
Blake Shinn on My Yankee Girl (yellow) was relegated to second behind Invincible Caviar (pink) for whip breaches after dead heating at Flemington.Credit:Getty
“Really not all that scientific and impossible to determine,” Racing Victoria chief stipe Robert Cram said. “We based the decision on the zero margin, and it was a gross breach.”
Why equating a margin to whip strikes has prevented stewards from taking positive action is beyond me. Obviously, they can reason how interference during the running can influence a result yet not hell-for-leather action with the strikes.
They have been hesitant to take the necessary steps because the jockey carries the responsibility, not the connections. On Saturday, Shinn plus the owners and trainer of Yankee Girl, were penalised in her demotion to second place. But the horse gained an unfair advantage. Surely justice was done.
Peter Moody, trainer of Invincible Caviar, doesn’t like the rule. “I watched the race and visually, to me, it didn’t look like Blake Shinn did too much wrong,” he told Melbourne media.
Recently back from Hong Kong, where the whip rules differ, Shinn apologised for the breach. Well done, Blake.
Some figure the Melbourne stipes have opened a Pandora’s box, protests aplenty and results reversed. On the local front in recent times, Sydney jockeys don’t appear as whippy.
Lloyd, 19, gets results from a touch more than strength, and his mounts benefit from a two-kilo claim. Kanazawa, trained by James Cummings, will need every ounce of it.
Cummings must be a major contender for the top trainer of a vintage year, considering Chris Waller’s effort to take the King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot with Nature Strip; and Ciaron Maher and David Eustace scoring with, among others, Gold Trip, in the Melbourne Cup.
Waller and his hitman, James McDonald, look prominent at Randwick on Saturday, where horse players are confronted with the possibility of J-Mac getting a four-horse parlay. But which four out of his 10 chances? Try Estadio Mestalla (third), Salire (fourth), Democracy Manifest (seven), and Kalino (10).
And the timing must be right for Kanazawa and Santa Claus. Should a reindeer want to stray at South Head when heading towards my granddaughter Ocean Violet’s first Christmas, surely a tickle with the twitch (a tool for gentle rectifying in the horse-and-cart era) won’t break regulations.
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