 |
| Kym Healy holding the prized Golden Harp 'Outback Cup' trophy. Image from 'Barrier Daily Truth' by Darrin Manuel |
Lightening, thunder and rain threatened the 2014 St Patrick's races on Saturday. Guests were treated to a dust storm, a thunder storm, strong winds and lots of rain, and the President of the St Patrick's Race Club, Marg Corradini said this gave visitors 'a great event, a great show', and noted 'how exciting was that' when she summed up the weather events to ABC Broken Hill radio host Julie Clift in her 'Outback Outlook' morning show yesterday.
Luckily things calmed down and the day turned out to be sunny. The start of the 1st race was delayed by an hour.
It certainly sounds like it was indeed very exciting, and I wish I'd been there. I was fortunate enough to attend the event in 2012, so I know just what a fantastic, fun event it is, and I can't recommend it highly enough.
'Eight Red won the Outback Cup'
The 1600 metre main race, race 6, the 'Clubs NSW and Keno Outback Cup' was won by number 6 'Eight Red', which ran, appropriately from barrier 8.No doubt the winning South Australian trainer Kym Healy from Strathalbyn, and jockey Wayne Kerford were delighted.
Last year's winner Tresette, came 2nd at two lengths behind the winner and Bellchuca was 3rd.
Eight Red is an 8 year old gelding who has had 10 wins from 63 starts according to www.racenet.com.au and has won over $100,000 in prize money so far. I notice he has 'Octagonal' as his dam's sire (i.e. his mother's father), not to mention Zabeel as his great grandfather. Octagonal had 10 Group 1 wins from 28 starts and won nearly $6 million in prize money. He also produced Lonhro, another very successful race horse who won a similar amount of prize money, so Eight Red is in very good company from a top gene pool, so he may well go on to bigger things. Keep an eye on him if you like to have a 'flutter' aka bet.
I know eight is a lucky number and red's my favourite colour. It's easy to say in hindsight, but I think I may have backed him if I was there. Unfortunately, as it wasn't a TAB race, you had to be at the track to place a bet. I believe, from an event point of view, with the weather delay of an hour, that would have meant they'd have to cancel the races if it had been a TAB event. So in a way, it was lucky that TAB wasn't covering the race this year.
I'm already looking forward to next year.
Cheers, Jane Deany (post number 222)
No comments:
Post a Comment