By Mike Dillon
You would hope erratic steeplechaser Bob Dobalino appreciates the great mate he's got in his trainer, Grant Shaw.
Punters were devastated when Eddie Lamb had to pull Bob Dobalino out of the Hawkes Bay Steeplechase at Hastings on Saturday when he couldn't control him.
But Shaw accepts that is simply part of the makeup of the fine jumper and unconditionally forgives him.
"He simply won't be restrained, he has to be allowed to do whatever he wants," says Shaw, with a bit more forgiveness than perhaps some who backed him on Saturday.
The problem, says Shaw, was having another dashing frontrunner in Soberano engaged at Hastings.
"Eddie and Soberano's rider Damon Smith had a yack in the jockeys' room before the race and decided that whichever of the two horses could be restrained early would take a trail.
"Soberano didn't want to be restrained and he led, but that didn't suit Bob. I knew it would lead to trouble.
"You have to let him bowl along until he finds his own pace, that's simply the way it has to be. He can't be dominated.
"If I try to get him to do something he's not happy with in training at the beach he locks his jaw and heads into the sand dunes. Nothing could stop him."
Some would describe Bob Dobalino, dashing all-the-way winner at Manawatu two starts ago, as resembling something that lives in a kennel. Shaw prefers to think of him as a good horse with a Jekyll and Hyde mind.
"One day you can ride him with a piece of cotton, the next day barbed wire wouldn't be strong enough."
Shaw is not concerned about Hastings impacting on the horse's future, only what each race means in terms of his sole goal - next June's Great Northern Steeplechase.
"The Wellington Steeples was our goal and Eddie said he believed the turning track and the fences at Trentham would be no problem for the horse.
"But I'm desperate to protect his weight for the big one next year and I haven't decided about Trentham. At this point I'm about 40 per cent for going.
"If he doesn't go to Wellington, I'll run him on the flat at Rotorua and look for a couple of the open steeplechases for him around the north."
Bob Dobalino is a dashing front-runner with a huge leap and Shaw is not worried about that style adapting to the gruelling extreme distance of the Northern next year.
"It's four miles and I wouldn't be worried if it was 10 miles. He set a fast pace at Manawatu two weeks ago and never looked like wilting. He could have kept that up easily for another round.
"The only concern is at Ellerslie the sharp bend into the chute for the fence by the 1600m starting point. Ideally you have to check them there to get around the bend well and he doesn't like having his momentum slowed."
Lamb is keen to stay with Bob Dobalino. Shaw isn't saying no, but it's got him thinking.
"He's won five times now and each time it's been when a jockey is having their first ride on him. "I don't know what that says about the horse."
Kennels and Tux biscuits spring to mind.
Horse Racing: Trainer sticking by bad boy Bob
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