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MOODY HAS GROUP CHANCES IN
TWO STATES
FORMER Queensland trainer, Peter Moody, who has
been enjoying amazing success in Melbourne this season,
chases Group success in Brisbane and Adelaide tomorrow.
Moody has Group 1 chances, Star of Gretchen and
Niagara Falls, in the Australasian Oaks at Morphettville
and three runners (Royal Mask, Lady Diva and Sky
Cuddle) in the G2 Queensland Guineas at Eagle Farm.
“ Star of Gretchen will appreciate the 2000m
at her third run back while Niagara Falls overraced
in the Lakewood and shouldn’t go so keely this
time,” Moody said.
Of his three Guineas runners in Brisbane, he has
a slight leaning for Royal Mask despite her bad barrier. “If
she wins well enough I’ll have to decide whether
she runs in the Queensland Oaks or the Stradbroke.
“ She’s only got 46kg in the Stradbroke
but if she wins the Guineas she’s automatically
in the Stradbroke. She won the Carr Stakes in Sydney
last start, which Private Steer won last year on
her way to winning the Stradbroke,” Moody said.
Royal Mask will be ridden by Darren Beadman, who
is returning to riding after being sidelined by a
back problem suffered in a race fall.
Moody, who has enjoyed Group One success with Amalfi
(Victoria Derby) and Ancient Song (Salinger Stakes),
will saddle up a dozen runners in three states tomorrow – five
in Brisbane, four in Melbourne and three in Adelaide.
GREAT NORTHERN HOTPOT DRAWS
OUTSIDE BARRIER
DOOMBEN winner, Bunsen Honeydew, holds down favouritism
for tomorrow’s $80,000 Parry Nissan Great Northern
Two-Year-Old in Townsville despite drawing the outside
alley.
Bunsen Honeydew, trained by Drew Crouch and to
be ridden by Paul Hammersley, is the only metropolitan
winner in the field.
The Townsville Bulletin reports that the awkward
draw continued a difficult few days for the Bunsen
Honeydew camp.
Crouch revealed that the Sanction gelding had been
found to have an elevated temperature in the wake
of a track gallop at Mackay last Saturday.
“ He’s had a little bit of a setback. He galloped after the races
here (at Mackay) last Saturday and came back with a bit of a temperature. I was
a little bit concerned on Sunday and Monday but I’m starting to feel a
little bit happier,” Crouch said.
“ When something like this happens you have
to ease up on them but it may work in my favour as
the horse may be fresh enough to take up a more forward
position from the barrier.”
Crouch can take some solace in the fact that wide
barriers have a good record in the 13 previous runnings
of North Queensland’s richest two-year-old
race.
Other leading chances fared well in the draw with
Babinda Belle and River Hunter to run from gates
three and seven respectively.
Hammersley, the leading Gold Coast apprentice, has
rejected Brisbane carnival commitments to partner
Bunsen Honeydew. A regular visitor to midweek TAB
meetings in the north, he has ridden 21 winners at
Cluden this season.
CUNNINGHAM APPEAL TO BE HEARD
NEXT WEEK
CALOUNDRA apprentice Kylie Cunningham will have
her appeal against a six weeks’ suspension,
incurred on Victory Highway in the Doomben Bracelet,
heard next Thursday.
The First Level Appeals Tribunal, under the chairmanship
of Mr Bill Andrews, will determine whether Cunningham
fulfils her dream of being the first female to win
the Queensland Oaks.
Stewards found the 21-year-old guilty of two charges – one
of careless riding and the other of failing to take
all reasonable and permissable measures to secure
the best possible position in the Bracelet.
Victory Highway, trained by Cunningham’s
father, Paddy, is part-owned by her sister, Rebecca
Parry. The filly came from last on the turn to finish
a close second to the Gai Waterouse-trained Beaujolais,
which led.
No female rider has ever won a Queensland Oaks
and only two, Diane Moseley and Maree Lyndon (in
the 1982 and 1985 Domben Cup on Double You Em and
Mr Trick respectively) have been successful in Group
One races in this State.
Cunningham, who will vigorously defend her handling
of Victory Highway, was told by stewards that her
ride ‘lacked judgement.’
Her father said Kylie was the only jockey who had
been able to win on the filly and that he was sastisfied
with her ride.
Unless her appeal is successful next Thursday,
Victory Highway will need a new rider for the $100,000
Doomben Roses on May 22 and the G1 $300,000 Queensland
Oaks at Eagle Farm on June 5.
The Cunningham appeal is one of three set down
for next Thursday. The others involve jockeys David
Gay and Matthew Cant from races at the Gold Coast.
RODD TO APPEAL IPSWICH SUSPENSION
TOP jockey Michael Rodd will appeal a careless riding
suspension, incurred at Ipswich on Wednesday, which
he fears could cost him some prime carnival mounts.
Rodd, the rider of Kayezed, was found guilty of
shifting out passing the 400m when not clear and
causing interference to Llama Lip and Marry Me Dee.
Rodd was suspended from riding in races for a period
of eight meetings. No date has yet been set for his
appeal.
CANNING DOWNS ENOYS RETURN TO GLORY DAYS
THE Sydney Morning Herald reports today that Canning
Downs Stud in Queensland has made a name for itself
by standing several outstanding stallions. We thank
the Herald for allowing us to run story by John Schell
on our website.
A return to the glory days of the famed Canning
Downs Stud in Queensland will take shape at Eagle
Farm on Saturday, with two fillies set to take the
Winter Carnival by storm.
John Barnes and partner Joy Mackay own Canning
Downs, a stud that has been in Barnes's family since
1917.
While the likes of Melbourne Cup winner Dalray
and six-time group 1 winner Tails have stood at the
Darling Downs property near Warwick, the future lies
with two three-year-old fillies, Only Words and Royal
Mask.
“ It's an exciting time,” Barnes said
this week as Only Words and Royal Mask went through
their final preparations for what he is hoping will
be a feature race double at Eagle Farm.
Only Words, a winner of five from six starts, will
start favourite in the Sir Byrne Hart Stakes, while
Royal Mask, a winner of both her starts since resuming
from a spell, is one of the top fancies in the Queensland
Guineas.
“ We are very lucky that we've got these two
fillies - Only Words and Royal Mask,” Barnes
said. “We paid $130,000 for Only Words at the
Easter sales in Sydney, while we bred Royal Mask
ourselves. Royal Mask is out of a Canning Downs mare
and that breeding line goes back to the grand-dam
of Tails.”
Barnes said Canning Downs Stud had been around
since ‘about 1840’ and had been purchased
for the Barnes family by his grandfather.
“ My grandfather bought it in 1917 and since
then we have been very fortunate,” he said. “My
father, who was the Minister for Territories when
Robert Menzies was Prime Minister, died in 1998.
“ He got Dalray from New Zealand to stand
at stud here and then raced Tails. After originally
telling me not to have anything to do with racehorses,
he ended up saying before he died to keep the stud
and the horses going.”
In 1998, Barnes and Mackay decided to "rebuild Canning Downs back to its
former glory". “We actually live in Sydney and spend four or five
months of the year up here at Canning Downs,” Barnes said. “We
race about 10 horses altogether, with John Hawkes and Peter Moody training
them.
“ We have no stallions, just concentrate on
breeding with mares and fillies. We are close enough
to the Hunter Valley that we can take down a mare,
get her served at one of the studs by a stallion
we choose and then take her home the next day to
Canning Downs.”
Barnes said his involvement in Sydney racing began
when he raced The Druidess with John Size. “The
Druidess is now one of our broodmares,” he
said.
When Size went to Hong Kong to train, Barnes and
Mackay joined forces with Hawkes. “We wanted
a trainer in Sydney as we had Peter Moody [who has
stables in Melbourne but hails from Queensland].”
Hawkes was entrusted with Only Words and the results
have given Barnes and Mackay a thrill.
“ We only bought Only Words as we were finding
it difficult to find broodmares to buy,” Barnes
said. “We'd been to the US and the UK as we
wanted to buy some quality. We think we got that
in Only Words. Quite frankly, we are in awe of her.
“ John Hawkes has done a fantastic job with
her. She has shown so much promise and the scary
thing is that this is really her first racing preparation.”
Only Words takes on older horses, including top galloper Defier, for the first
time on Saturday after previously defeating her own age group with ease.
“ It's a step up for her in the Sir Byrne
Hart and she's been up a long while which is of some
concern,” Barnes said. “But we've said
to John Hawkes that the minute she shows any signs
of having enough racing she can go out for a spell.
“ We really respect John Hawkes and [jockey]
Rod Quinn, he's an excellent rider, and if they feel
she's not 100 per cent, then she'll go straight out.
But if she goes well, then the Stradbroke is a definite
possibility.”
As for Royal Mask, Barnes said: “We are just
hoping she can keep improving. With Royal Mask and
Only Words, the plan is to race them at least until
the end of their four-year-old campaigns.
“ We are only a smallish operation and are
just trying to focus on the quality end of the market.
We bred about 15 horses this year and we have about
60 horses altogether.”
Barnes said Only Words and Royal Mask, to be ridden
by Darren Beadman in the Queensland Guineas, would
spell at Canning Downs this winter.
“ It's great horse country up here,” he
said. “We've done all we can do in the up-bringing
of these horses and we have great trainers and great
jockeys doing their bit now. Some more success on
Saturday would be just great as we continue to try
and recapture the magic of Canning Downs.”
Tails, the galloper which thwarted Gunsynd's bid
for a winning farewell from racing in the 1972 Queen
Elizabeth Stakes, can lay claim to keeping Canning
Downs Stud in business.
And it was the foresight of CEB Barnes, who secured
Melbourne Cup winner Dalray to stand at the stud,
that led to Tails becoming one of the best gallopers
of his era.
“ Cyril Neville from New Zealand owned and
raced Dalray when he won the 1952 Melbourne Cup but
when he retired [Dalray] was having difficulty breeding
and covering mares,” said John Barnes.
“ So my father [CEB Barnes] took him on lease.
The only problem was [Dalray] didn't know how to
serve a mare. Dalray was a very savage stallion,
very vicious.”
Instead of giving up on Dalray, CEB Barnes revived
his stud career. “Dad just put a mare in a
nearby yard, next to Dalray, and let him think about
it for 24 hours,” John Barnes said. “The
next day he had no more problems serving a mare,
he quickly worked out what it was all about.”
Dalray sired Tails, which won the equivalent of
six Group 1 races and when he retired was second
only to champion Tulloch in the all-time prizemoney
earners list.
“ Tails doesn't really rank up there with
the great champions but he'll be best remembered
for beating Gunsynd in that famous Queen Elizabeth
Stakes,” said Barnes.
“ We ended up standing Tails as a stallion
and I suppose it's because of him that we are still
in racing.”
NORTH QLD REJECT WINS GRAND
ANNUAL STEEPLE
TONY Bourke reports in the Melbourne Age today how
former North Queensland galloping nonentity, Kwila's
Quest, now rated an Olympic standard showjumper,
led most of the way to win the $121,500 Grand Annual
Steeplechase at Warnambool yesterday.
It was also a triumph for trainer Jim Lochhead and
senior part-owner Cathy Walker, who combined their
skills to pick out the now seven-year-old as a likely
type to jump about two years ago.
It was Walker who went to Cairns and bought Kwila's
Quest for $1500 after Lochhead had researched the
gelding's pedigree and decided he was bred to ‘run
10 miles.’
Walker, an Age journalist, said as soon as she laid
eyes on Kwila's Quest, she knew they had made the
right decision. “He was sound and had all the
makings of a jumper,” she said.
It cost another $1000 to get Kwila's Quest back
to Melbourne and Lochhead said it had been something
of a culture shock for the horse when he arrived
at his Gisborne property from the tropics in near-freezing
weather.
“I said, ‘Get used to it, son, you’re
a steeplechaser now’.”
They enlisted the aid of celebrated show rider Gary
Bridges to see whether, in fact, Kwila's Quest had
jumping potential and he soon gave them a glowing
report.
“Gary said if he was trained as a showjumper,
he'd be up to Olympic standard,” Lochhead said.
Instead, Lochhead and Walker were happy to follow
their dream and have a horse good enough to win races
such as the Grand Annual and Grand National Steeplechases.
Kwila's Quest won the Novice Steeplechase at last
year's May carnival, after which they decided to
aim for the big one this year.
Everything went according to plan until Kwila's
Quest's last start, when he won the Tasmanian Grand
National Steeplechase at Deloraine by seven lengths,
only to be relegated to third on protest in controversial
circumstances.
Walker and Lochhead sought legal advice on the stewards’ decision
and only 20 minutes before yesterday's race, it was
announced that the Tasmanian Racing Authority had
declared the protest result null and void and there
would be an independent inquiry into the stewards’ findings.
Racing Victoria Ltd chief executive Robert Nason
said at Warrnambool yesterday he had agreed to a
request from the Tasmanian authorities that RVL chief
steward Des Gleeson should head the inquiry. A date
has yet to be set because amateur rider Paul Graesser,
who rode Kwila's Quest at Deloraine, is recovering
in hospital after a fall last week.
Kwila's Quest yesterday was ridden a perfectly-judged,
frontrunning race in front of a crowd estimated at
18,000 by Nathan Dunn, 26, who has made a big impact
on the jumps riding ranks in the past two years.
Lochhead said they had decided to take Kwila's Quest
to the front and control the race. “I knew
if they left him alone, they had no chance of getting
past him,” he said.
With a 4.5kg pull in the weights over the favourite
Chakra, and having six kilograms on his other main
danger, Crafty Dancer, Dunn was able to keep enough
pressure on.
With Kwila's Quest not putting a foot wrong, he
drew a couple of jumping errors from Chakra, who
still managed to poke his head in front at various
stages, but Dunn was always able to push on and regain
the lead.
QUEENSLAND Racing web news: John Lingard – May
7.
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