KEY POINTS:
The favourite dislodged her jockey, the winner withstood a protest and in the end it took the laconic Bart Cummings to best sum up the outcome of an action-packed Queensland Derby (2400m) at Eagle Farm yesterday.
Cummings' regally-bred colt Empires Choice had to win the Group One feature
twice, first on the track and then in the stewards' room.
The master trainer's post-inquiry comment to Tommy Hughes, trainer of runner-up Volcanic Star, was a fitting example of the racing spirit.
"No hard feelings, your turn will come eventually son," Cummings told Hughes after the stewards' verdict. Cummings last won the Queensland event in 1975 with Bottled Sunshine.
While Cummings and Hughes were stating their case in the stewards' room, New Zealand trainer Michael Moroney was checking on the welfare of Queensland Oaks winner Eskimo Queen and the race favourite's rider Greg Childs, who was dislodged at the halfway mark of the race. Eskimo Queen was not injured and expatriate New Zealander Childs was taken to hospital by ambulance for observation with minor facial lacerations.
The Mike Moroney-trained filly started a $3.70 favourite after blitzing the Queensland Oaks field a week ago, but the big crowd gasped when Eskimo Queen stumbled and Childs crashed to the turf 1500m from home.
Initial hospital reports said Childs, who notched his 70th Group One win in the Oaks, had escaped serious injury but was undergoing precautionary X-rays. He had a cut to his face and his neck was put in a brace.
Moroney thought Eskimo Queen clipped heels with another runner as Childs tried to ease off the fence while having a good run in fifth.
There were mixed emotions for the former Matamata trainer, who thought he had the Group One $A500,000 ($NZ566,250) Derby won 200m from home when his other runner Resolution strode up to the leaders.
Resolution finished fourth, less than a length from Empires Choice.
"I thought he might have been home. It was a good run."
Jockey Michael Coleman also had dollar signs in his eyes halfway down the straight.
"I was a bit confident at the 200m, he was just winding into it, then I saw the other ones just grind past me the last bit," Coleman said. "He'd had just two leadup runs, maybe with one more it could have made a difference but it was a good effort."
Another well-backed New Zealander, Sands Of Time, trained at Cambridge by Paul Duncan, had a good run handy to the pace and hit the front at the top of the straight before weakening quickly.
Moroney said Eskimo Queen, Resolution and his stable star Xcellent, which finished among the tailenders in the Stradbroke Handicap, would all go home for a spell and be set for spring racing.
Empires Choice ($5.50) was first past the post with a head to spare over Volcanic Star ($41) with Cummings' other runner, Sirmione, ($5) a half-head back in third.
Steven Arnold, rider of Volcanic Star, immediately fired in an objection against Empires Choice stating Damien Oliver had allowed the winner to shift out at least three horses.
Oliver said the interference was minor and both horses drifted together over the final stages but his crucial piece of evidence came when he pointed to the fact Empires Choice came from behind Volcanic Star.
- AAP
