Racing: Bakers see their dough rise

Leith Innes and Cog Hill (left) edge out Leigh Valley, ridden by Gary Grylls, to win the Coupland's Mile feature race. PICTURE / SIMON BAKER

The bakers were trading dough at Riccarton in Christchurch yesterday.

But in this case the dough was first prize of $156,000 that came with the inaugural running of the group three $250,000 Coupland's Mile Handicap.

The race is sponsored by Ray Coupland, who operates one of the country's biggest bakeries, and Gerald Shand, a part-owner of the race's winner, Cog Hill, has Rivermill Bakeries, another large bakery business based at Huntly in the Waikato.

The irony of the win was lost on Shand when he spoke to Coupland afterwards.

"I said that money will be really sweet," Shand said with a laugh.

Shand said he had known Coupland for many years and claimed it was he who suggested to Coupland he should move into the bread business instead of just pies and cakes.

Coupland confirmed that was the case. "Yeah, and I haven't look back since," Coupland said.

Shand, 70, said he had raced horses for 50 years.

Among the best was Megabucks, trained by Lloyd Burdett whose many wins included the Canterbury Gold Cup and Churchill Stakes at the Riccarton track.

Shand was also a part-owner of Danske, winner of the Two Thousand Guineas at Riccarton.

A syndicate of six race yesterday's winner Cog Hill.

The other five are Shand's son Bruce, Val Evans, Barry Kidd, Roger Weetman and Judy Collett.

The latter is the wife of Richard Collett, who trains Cog Hill in partnership with Shane Hapeta at Pukekohe, south Auckland.

Richard Collett had been critical of the weight Cog Hill received for yesterday's race, but among those he shook hands with him after the win was chief handicapper Dean Nowell.

Collett acknowledged to Nowell that the recently introduced rating system restricted flexibility in handicapping.

Leith Innes and Cog Hill did really well to hold off the challenge of Leigh Valley with race favourite Hurrah relegated to third place.

- NZPA