Racing journalist for the
Daily Telegraph Nic Ashman made him Sunday’s
Best Bet of the day in the Sunday Telegraph, as did
Sky Channel’s Tony Brassel.
Dynamic Syndication’s Team had no doubts we were in a race up to our eyeballs at weights and measures whilst
trainer Matthew Dunn wouldn’t hear of the horse getting beaten. Jockey J
eff Lloyd rated the horse perfectly off the front and had an armchair ride.
MESTALLA gave our owners a shout and a cheer without any moments of stress as the
$1.30 Hot Pot scored as he should, untroubled and eased down by
3.8 lens x 2 lengths running 1:31.60 and sliding home his last 600m in 34.40 at Lismore on Sunday.
MESTALLA had raced without luck this preparation despite recording impressive runs. He had no trouble making his own luck here when winning Race 2 -
FREE ENTRY FRIDAY 8TH MAY CLASS 2 PLATE (1516 METRES).
MESTALLA carried top weight of 59.0kgs and defeated
Phast Lad 55.5kgs and
Ted and Tubs 57.0kgs.
This was a race on paper, with weights and measures,
MESTALLA turning up and having four legs and a head pointing in the same direction, said he should win dominantly – and he did.
Having been placed 2nd at his past 2 runs, beaten a nose two starts back at a mid-week Brisbane meeting transferred to Ipswich and then on 9th April South East Queensland provincial meeting held at Beaudesert where he was beaten just 1.5 lengths having been attacked and under pressure throughout.
Having his hoof on the till, we went searching the racing calendar in both NSW and Queensland looking for a race where we thought he would be well placed. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we spied this race at Lismore and aimed our horse for the race.
Under these conditions, he was finding a Class 2 event (restricted to horses that have not won more than 2 races) under Plate conditions (Set Weights). Under handicap conditions, our horse was a Benchmark 61 but because it was a Plate race, the handicapper could not give him any more than 59.0kgs.
On the spread of the Benchmark Ratings at acceptance time, the closest rated horse to him was Ted and Tubs as a Benchmark 51, and then Phast Lad as a Bm of 47.
This meant
MESTALLA was 10 points = 5.0kgs higher rated than Ten and Tubs and 14 points = 7.0 kgs higher than Phast Lad.
However under these race conditions,
MESTALLA only had to give 2.0kgs to Ted and Tubs instead of 5.0kgs whilst we only gave 3.5 kgs to Phast Lad instead of 7.0kgs.
Simple mathematics said we were thrown in under the weight scale, so unless there was an unforeseen issue, we should be too well weighted for his opponents.
With an extremely professional ride by
Jeff Lloyd, where he controlled the race off the front and the first half of the race going not much faster than a working gallop, there was no hope for those chasing him. Especially when without being touched and just going through his gears up the straight, they ran home a slick 34.40 off the front the last 600m. Again mathematically those chasing had no chance.
Pictorial of the race:
The power of the press had its impact on the price and with
Nic Ashman and Tony Brassel having made the horse their
Best Bet on the day MESTALLA was never going to be much of a price. On course he opened at
$1.18 and only got out to
$1.24 before firming back to
$1.22 and when the TAB Pools rounded up in the last two minutes of betting you were doing slightly better at
$1.30.
However for our owners it’s not about the punt, it’s about winning and banking cheques so they have prizemoney to cover their training and holding costs.
MESTALLA won in such easy fashion, it was not much more than trackwork, having gone steady and only dashing up 600m.
MESTALLA has now taken his career record to
14 starts: 3 wins, 3 seconds, 1 third and $47,425.
He has won at
1410m, 1516m and 1600m.
The win by
MESTALLA recorded
Dynamic Syndications 419th overall win since October 2005 and our
33rd win by a Dynamic horse in this 2014/15 Racing season.
Congratulations to the wonderful team of
Dynamic OWNERS that race
MESTALLA:
Dynamic Syndications Racing, Mr R J Gall, Mr W Hunter, Mr V P Chau, Mr A Wickham, Mr B N Williams, Mr R K Whitefield, Mr D G Ritchie, Mr N W Honey, Mrs A W Edwards, Mr S P Loane, Mr A Pino, Mr M Watson, Mr W G Roser, Mr R F Hambleton, Mr E P Holoway, Mr A G Bradley, C J R Racing