THE Irish-bred Mister Sea Wolf franked his number one saddlecloth by taking out New South Wales newest $1 million race, The Gong at Kembla Grange on Saturday.
The 1,600-metre contest is the son of Amadeus Wolf’s biggest win yet on what was the 45th start of his career. Known as just Sea Wolf early in his career, he was first trained by Michael Dods before moving on to have plenty of success with Ger Lyons in the David Spratt colours.
Spratt retains a share in the seven-year-old who moved to Australia to be trained by Chris Waller at the end of the 2017 flat season. A Group 2 Shannon Stakes winner two starts back Mister Sea Wolf looked generous at $20 (19/1).
“The first furlong into the straight I was very happy with him but thought he would be a sitting duck,” said jockey James MacDonald. “He soldiered it out really well. He’s my old favourite. We’ve had a good association. I thought he was going to be up against it with 59kg and a firm track.”
Mister Sea Wolf led home the Not A Single Doubt gelding Quackerjack by a head with the same margin back to the Ocean Park gelding Star Of The Seas in third.
LLOYD Williams is set to close his Melbourne base at Macedon Lodge and have all his horses trained with Joseph O’Brien. “Over the last 18 months I have found it impossible to supervise Macedon Lodge,” said Williams. “Over the previous decades I lived there and supervised everything. But it’s more difficult in your 80th (year), age slows you down.”
O’Brien and Williams combined to win the Melbourne Cup with Rekindling in 2017 and arguably could have won again this year had Master Of Reality run straight, and not been relegated to fourth on protest. Williams bought Macedon Lodge from Kurt Stern and subsequently produced the Melbourne Cup winners Efficient, Green Moon and Almandin.
This year Macedon Lodge had no Cup runners and all three horses that were part-owned by Williams were prepared by Joseph O’Brien.
The future for the navy blue silks, white armbands and cap, as worn by Latrobe in the 2018 Irish Derby, looks to lie very much in the relationship that Lloyd’s son Nick has developed with Joseph. Williams had flagged the sale of Macedon Lodge back in 2014 having bought the property off Kurt Stern in 2007 for A$5.1 million, before spending double that again on refurbishments.
JOHNNY Allen made a repeat of his Ballarat Cup win in 2018, partnering again with the Reset gelding Kiwia to go back-to-back in his ‘new’ hometown Cup. Twelve months earlier Kiwia was trained by Darren Weir but had since transferred to London-born Archie Alexander, also based at Ballarat.
“Everyone can talk the talk but you need winners, so to land a big winner on a big day when we’ve aimed the horse for this, is great,” said Alexander after winning the A$500,000 listed event over 1,600 metres. “It’s a hometown Cup and probably more special because he’s a horse that we came here not overly confident with.”
Kiwia had not won in eight starts since last years effort. “It was a little bit of deja vu,” said Allen.
“It was probably a bit tougher this year. I think he was more impressive last year but it’s a tougher race and the extra prize money has meant there are better quality horses around, so all credit to him.
“Lucky for me, Archie and the owners decided to wait to see if he could get a run and that worked out great.”
Wizard of the West holds the Power
FEATURE racing switched to Perth over the weekend with the running of A$1 million Group 1 Railway Stakes over Ascot’s 1,600 metres kicking off their Summer carnival. The Grant and Alana Williams-trained Tellem We’re Comin garnered most interest pre race, but it was their other starter Regal Power, sporting the ubiquitous colours of owner and breeder Bob Peters, who prevailed.
Ridden by West Australian leading jockey William Pike, nicknamed ‘The Wizard of the West’, the Pierro gelding defeated Godolphin’s Azamour gelding Best Of Days, with the the Playing God gelding Platoon in third.