KEY POINTS:
Weight is going to be an issue for Dezigna this spring and summer.
It was when he scored a dashing fresh-up win in the $30,000 L J Hooker Whangarei Spring Stakes at Ruakaka on Saturday, but not for the reasons you might think.
The 59.5kg looked a major
hurdle on paper against a redhot field, but trainer Wayne Hillis was unconcerned. "He's used to carrying me every morning and I'm 70kg - he thought he had a feather on his back," said Hillis yesterday.
You could be forgiven for thinking he did have a feather in the saddle, such was the ease of the win.
Black Panther took many lengths off Dezigna in the final 150m in what was a spectacular burst from last at the 500m, but the winner eased up, as he usually does, when he got to the front halfway down the home straight.
The softness of the win could be gauged by the fact Dezigna yesterday morning showed no signs of having had a race, despite Saturday being his first raceday appearance since finishing out of the money in the 2000m Singapore Airlines Gold Cup in May.
What should have been an extremely tough first-up effort with a big weight against top class opposition has taken no toll at all.
"He thinks he's a 2-year-old, not an 8-year-old," says Hillis. But, of course, racing is decided on the relativity of weights and Dezigna faces a tough job in handicaps this season.
After winning with 59.5kg on Saturday, he will almost certainly be required to carry topweight or equal topweight in all his handicap starts.
Which is why his immediate goal is the weight-for-age $200,000 Captain Cook Stakes at Trentham on October 27. "We'll run him first in the $100,000 Kelt Memorial on Kelt Capital day at Hastings."
The Kelt Memorial is a 1400m handicap. "After the Captain Cook one of his possible targets will be the Couplands Bakeries Mile at Riccarton." The weight issue aside, Hillis thought Dezigna would go close to winning on Saturday because of his fine fresh-up record.
"He won first-up for us when he joined the stable then he should have won when he was beaten when fresh when we took him to Brisbane. "I told Troy (Harris) I thought he'd go close."
You can make a case that Dezigna, for the second half of last season and now in his new preparation, is in career-best form.
"He's certainly as well as any previous time since we've had him," he said. The Matamata trainer is keen to prove Dezigna over 2000m.
"I'm sure he can win at 2000m, in fact I'm positive." Dezigna's first attempt at 2000m saw him come from the tail of the field in an unsuitable sit-and-sprint Starcraft Stakes at Ellerslie in the autumn to finish third to Gaze and Sir Slick.
He finished out of the money in the Singapore Cup over 2000m, but did not race up to his best.
"There are quite a few 2000m weight-for-age races coming up, the first of them at Ellerslie."
The $100,000 Lindauer Special Reserve Stakes is run at Ellerslie on Melbourne Cup Day and is a week before the Riccarton carnival begins.
Black Panther is another likely to be heading to the Captain Cook Stakes.
He impressed at the Taupo trials and backed that up with a massive first-up run on Saturday.
He prefers speed on in his races and therefore the better the opposition the better he tends to perform.
Tenjuberrymud ran right up to his best form to finish third after looking likely at the 175m and the fourth and fifth runners, Belthazar and Clifton Prince, looked the improvers.