Racing: Hill training pays off for Just Not Cricket

Just Not Cricket heads for the tape. Picture / Greg Bowker

We've seen the benefit of hill training from the Browne stable for years.

But we've probably not seen a more stark example as Just Not Cricket's comeback win in Saturday's $100,000 Lindauer Great Northern Hurdles win at Ellerslie.

Staggering is not too strong to describe the level of disbelief from punters and from rival jockey Tom Hazlett after Just Not Cricket found impossible levels of stamina - he simply should not have had to edge back past Yourtheman after looking beaten.

Put it down to the hills on the Hawke's Bay farm property of Paul and Carol Nelson.

Paul Nelson has always done conditioning work with his racehorses over the hills of his property, but refined the approach after a trip to England in 2000.

"It was always a bit steep, but we put in a proper 1000m hill gallop when we came back from England.

"Now we can use it any day we want to," Nelson said.

"Previously we'd send a truck to the Hastings track maybe a couple of times a week with the flat horses and the jumpers would go in to gallop when the truck went in, rather than when they needed to."

It would be a shame if even one punter thought Tommy Hazlett went too soon on Yourtheman.

Instantly when Just Not Cricket made an ordinary job of the third-last fence at the 600m he came completely off the bit and Yourtheman, simply bolting at that point, edged ahead.

It was not a case of Hazlett hunting the horse along, he simply let him slide with natural momentum.

If you could have put the race on freeze-frame at that point and re-opened the tote, it would have been $1.15 Yourtheman and $20 Just Not Cricket.

Waikiki Prince took out a panel of the first fence in the home straight on the first time round and an accident was narrowly avoided a round later when the leader Our Front Line tried to duck out through the gap.

Admirably, the ground staff removed most of what was going to be the second-last fence for the final round.

Yourtheman approached the last in front and jumped it better than Just Not Cricket, but the previously unbeaten hurdler somehow plugged into an unknown reserve for Jonathan Riddell and edged past.

Nelson is a man of few words, but couldn't wait to reveal how delighted he was for his owners and long-time mates Gary and Jan Sharratt.

Nelson and Sharratt went to school together and played polo in the same Hawke's Bay team for more than a decade.

"They deserve this," said Nelson.

There has been a lot of perseverance. Just Not Cricket has had two cracked cannon bones and battled tendon problems for a lengthy period.

Sharratt revealed his sense of humour for such things in naming his horses. He had two horses by the stallion Corrupt to name in 2000 as South African cricketer Hansie Cronje's scandal hit the headlines.

He named them Match Fixing and Just Not Cricket.

"Match Fixing won his first start, developed a dicky heart and he's now my hunter," said Sharratt.

The Japan Racing Association's invite to New Zealand to take part in the world's richest jumping race, the Nakayama Grand Jump, in March will be interesting, with Real Tonic and Just Not Cricket in contention.

Hazlett thought Yourtheman would have guaranteed getting the invite if he'd added the Great Northern to his Grand National victory.

"I'm completely gutted," said Hazlett back in the jockeys' room.

"I had to let him slide forward down the back. If I had done otherwise I'd have ended up six deep back on the fence.

"When I worked past Just Not Cricket at the 500m he was galloping like a tortoise and my horse was bolting."

Both Northerns ended up as if they were scripted by the Auckland Racing Club, Real Tonic getting home for punters as did Just Not Cricket as well as for Jonathan Riddell, last week made jumping ambassador for Ellerslie.