Racing: Pender's road to victory a taxing one

Tauranga horseman Jim Pender was walking a touch short yesterday.

It was for a different reason than why he was stepping short earlier in the week.

Yesterday's hiccup was from the celebration of winning Saturday's $100,000 Bayley's Japan/NZ Trophy on his local track.

The glitch in his step a few days earlier was from riding Casabella Lane in trackwork.

Pender might be 57 but says he still hankers to get out and occasionally mix it with the youngsters in trackwork.

Lately, that's been more frequently and by necessity.

"One stable girl went to work in Cambridge, then my apprentice Amelia Denby transferred to the South Island.

"I had my niece working for me and she went to Cambridge and another girl left for Perth."

Pender has been helping out riding two or three each morning.

"One morning I rode five and the next day I looked like a half-opened pocket knife - I couldn't straighten up.

"I was showing off. I was telling the kids when I was young I used to ride 30 a morning. I said I'd ride them bare-footed and use barbed wire for reins."

It's one thing for a rider to tell a trainer a horse worked like a winner coming up to a race, but it's something again to know that for yourself.

Jim Pender knew Casabella Lane's day had finally arrived when he worked the mare himself midweek.

"I rang one of the owners, Myles O'Dwyer, and said: 'Saturday is going to be your day'. "She was so well she didn't know what to do with herself. I had to get off her and walk her off the track in case she did something silly."

It had been a while coming. Few horses have had to contend with the bad luck Casabella Lane has endured, almost all of it because she is a natural back runner.

And it didn't look good again on Saturday when the classy mare was equal last buried back on the inside rail at the 600m.

"I told Jason [Collett] not to try and change her style of racing - it's just the way she is," said Pender.

Collett started a move soon afterwards, but was forced to be the widest runner on the home bend to get around the pack.

Even with Casabella's well-known strong finish, the leaders needed to come back to her and they did, thanks to the hectic pace set by Sir Slick and Irish Colleen.

The tempo was a help, but that probably didn't matter in the closing stages, so powerful was Casabella Lane as she broke clear by 2 lengths.

Jim Pender might enjoy dressing in a suit to go to the races, but his often dapper appearance disguises the nature of the former Rotorua boy who enjoys the old-time camaraderie of how racing used to be before the hardline professionalism swept into the industry.

Corporate training is not his style. There were wonderful scenes in the Tauranga birdcage with his syndicate of winning owners on Saturday.

"Overall, I have a great bunch of owners in the stable and a lot of them who own other horses came up to the house last night to celebrate with us.

"One lot of owners bought a barbecue for the stables and they come every Saturday morning and do a cook-up for everyone, staff included, and we can have up to 20 people there at a time.

"I really love that side of it."

Jim Pender was a successful amateur rider as his father was before him.

"I won a steeplechase at Ellerslie on Lady Leanora for Trevor McKee and Trevor didn't train a lot of jumpers."

Neither does Pender.

He's more concentrating on Casabella Lane taking that final step up the ladder from Saturday's group two victory to the group one $200,000 NZ Bloodstock Breeders Stakes at Te Aroha in two weeks.

JAPAN/NZ TROPHY

* Classy mare Casabella Lane finally got her due rewards.
* The often unlucky local mare blew the opposition away in Saturday's group two event.
* It was one of 57-year-old trainer Jim Pender's big moments.