Racing is character building - that’s a given!
Whilst we all harbour dreams of our horses winning Group 1 races when we buy a yearling, things can and do go wrong.
On Thursday at Taree, the owners of CABRIERE won the equivalent of their own personal Group 1 when their 4yo gelding broke through for a much deserved win in Race 4 - TAREE CRAZY DAY 18/8 MAIDEN PLATE 1300m. On a Good 3 he recorded a time of 1:20.21 with a last 600m: 0:37.56 as a $3.20 favourite. His career now reads:
CABRIERE 4yo gelding (by PIERRO x BALLERINA GIRL by Danehill Dancer)
5 starts: 1 : 1 : 0 and $18,955 Prizemoney.
This was a win for perseverance. It’s a win for courage. It’s a win for belief and it’s a win for loyalty.
The owners of CABRIERE must have a heart as big as Phar Lap did because this 4yo has overcome two significant injuries that a lesser horse would have certainly succumbed too.
As an early 2yo the son of PIERRO badly injured his suspensory ligament in a training accident and in the same mishap he badly damaged his sesamoids.
Two of Australia’s leading veterinarians declared the prognosis “hopeless” and advised in their opinion that the horse should be retired as he would never race. A third diagnosis from our own independent expert veterinarian Dr Tim Roberts gave guarded hope as long as we followed a specific regime.
A vote was taken amongst the owners that we give the horse every chance by following Tim’s recommendations of a long recuperation period and then plenty of long, slow, low intensity foundation work. In what was the equivalent of an equine minor miracle, CABRIERE responded to the horse husbandry techniques we were employing and we were able to get him to the races, which was a win in its own right!
At his first preparation, CABRIERE ran 2nd on debut at Newcastle and the owners were so excited. Then we took him to the bush for his second start for what we had hoped was an easy victory where he started favourite but he got a long way off the speed and didn’t get any chance to win when running home into fourth. Back for his third start, he was disappointing that day and had a few niggles when he cooled down which saw him head back to the paddock for another enforced spell.
A change of stable was needed to bring out the best in the horse so our owners accepted our recommendation to move him to young gun trainer Ben Smith at Newcastle. Being a smaller, hands-on trainer who concentrates on attention to detail, Ben has polished Cabriere into a racehorse.
Connections were confident going into his first up run this preparation at Scone but everything flew out the window as the gates flung back, with our horse missing the kick and then being battered like a pinball before being squirted wide and then pushed wider and wider again. Anything that could go wrong did.
The trainer and the Team at Dynamic knew how well the horse was going but it was soul destroying for his loyal ownership team to have come so far on this journey and that happen.
However bravely they sucked it up and we faced up again into this race at Taree on Thursday and the result was an absolute smashing of his peers.
However yet again, things didn’t go his way during the running of this event but class rose to the top.
As the gates opened, Cabriere stood flat footed and missed the start. He should have been shuffled out the back but inexplicably, in the first 100m the opposition jockeys didn’t cross from out wide towards the fence, allowing our jockey Arron Bullock to push up underneath them and catch them napping. This gave Cabriere a gun run up to mid-field, one off the fence in 4th / 5th position, tracking and covering the obvious pre-race dangers being Jet Pilot beside him on the fence and Mud Wrap 3 deep on our outside. Then as they approached the first turn, there was some tightening and Cabriere was forced to check off heels and lose momentum.
As the field approached the 500m mark upon the point of the bend where they start to turn for home, the horse running second, ran off the track which caused Arron Bullock to have to get going early to ensure he wouldn’t get pocketed by another runner on his outside.
Quickly Cabriere dashed and picked up 2 lengths to hit the lead with 300m to run. All those behind him were being scrubbed along and not making headway so Aaron allowed Cabriere to just keep rolling along under his own steam and then eased down over the final 50m.
Interviewed post race, our pilot Aaron Bullock said: “he’s a funny horse, I think it’s all about confidence.
“I haven’t had anything to do with him but he walked out of the machines which I can tell has cost him races and then I was lucky that those horses in front of me didn’t cross and I drove him up there and then I had a lovely run.
“Then the other horse hung off and I had to go for him sooner than I wanted too but I always had plenty of horse under me even though I was off the bit.
“It was a nice feeling, a bit of confidence and he’s got the ability to go on and win more.”
Congratulations to a brilliant Team of Dynamic Owners who genuinely deserve this win and resulting photo of their horse for their wall. That’s a Win for the Good Guys!
Dynamic Syndications Racing, Mrs I Gurney, Mr W Gurney, Mr C J McNeill, Mr S Bowen, Mr S L Richards, Mr A Vella, Mr N C Blake, Ms C N Hollingsworth, Mr G Hanslow, Mr M Schifilliti, Mrs R J A Matthews, Mr A Luc, Mrs M J Stone, Mr L Bogdanovski, Mr N Philippou, Mr P D Jurgeleit, Mr J Taylor, N W F C Racing, Mr A Isgro
Cabriere recorded our Second Win for the new 2018/19 Racing season and our 544th Race Win. He became Dynamic Syndications 192nd Individual Winner from 204 Individual Runners (94.1%).