By BARRY STREET
Top jockey Peter Johnson was unimpressed by the size of Real Class Act when about to mount the Levin mare for the $30,000 Whakatane Cup at Tauranga.
But he had a good deal more respect for her after she outstayed Lately to win the listed 2100m on Saturday in her first race right handed.
So much so, Johnson said yesterday, that he would be only too pleased to be on her again when she returns north for the $40,000 Mitchelson Cup, a listed 2400m, at Ellerslie on October 7.
"She is not very big, but she's got heaps of ability in ground the way it was on Saturday,"he said.
"I liked the way she toughed it out.
"I don't think she'd have any trouble going an extra 300m in the Mitchelson Cup."
Because of the current dearth of northern open-class handicap horses, Johnson did not expect to pick up any ride in the Whakatane Cup - a race he first won in 1974 on Oopik.
To his rescue came his manager, Best Bets editor and former amateur rider Mike Brown, who suggested Real Class Act would be at good odds but as good a chance as any.
Brown based that opinion on the little mare's determined finish to win the Parliamentary Handicap at Trentham in July.
The Big Spender mare had also been far from disgraced, Brown suggested, when forced over extra ground and unplaced in two starts on unseasonal footing at the Grand National carnival at Riccarton last month.
Real Class Act is one of only three horses trained these days by 63-year-old Errol Skelton, who in his heydays won a New Zealand Derby at Ellerslie with the champion filly Our Flight and numerous other stakes races here and in Australia with Shuzohra, Rose And Thistle, Kosha, Asheen and Frederick.
"Errol may now be semi-retired, but he still knows how to present a fit horse,"Johnson said.
* * *
Taumarunui Cup winner Just There may have raced as though weary from his mid-winter exertions when only fourth in the Whakatane Cup.
But co-trainer Peter Hollinshead was not having a bar of that.
Quite the opposite was the case, Hollinshead claimed yesterday.
"The horse got away on me a bit in the month after the Taumarunui Cup. That's why I stepped him out over a mile [1600m] at Pukekohe last Saturday week.
"He needed that because he'd been doing too well.
"Also, because of a slight foot problem, we weren't able to give him as much work as we wanted to last week.
"We had to put some pads under his work shoes just to get him to go a couple of 600m gallops when normally he'd have done a bit more.
"We hoped he'd get away with that [reduced work] but, of course, he didn't."
A quandary now facing the Just There camp is how best to prepare for the Mitchelson Cup with so few open middle-distance opportunities in the meantime.
"The Mitchelson is a month away, so he could certainly pack on too much condition again," Hollinshead said.
"I didn't even consider the possibility until today, but he might just have to go around again next Saturday in an open 2100m race at Ellerslie."
Darryl and Peter Hollinshead's other splendid recent performer, Toppy, is due to race next in A $20,000 3-6 win 2100m at Hastings next Saturday week.
Because of his last-start win in similar company at Hastings and his consistency, Toppy could be weighted next time as high as 57.5kg, Peter Hollinshead said.
However, there would be nothing wrong with putting Andrew Calder up again with a 2kg claim, the Hastings apprentice having twice ridden the horse for two wins.
Racing: Diminutive mare a really tough act
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.