Racing: Tempelten hits perfect 10

Tempelten showed his best form with an easy win in the Thames Cup on Saturday.

Enigmatic stayer finally puts best hoof forward to deliver the goods in Thames Cup.

Every now and then you see a horse that you would like to leave at the racetrack hoping somebody else will take him home.

Tempelten is such a horse.

Unless there are two Tempeltens, the one that won Saturday's $25,000 Coastwood Homes Thames Cup has a very devious mind.

In the Dunstan qualifier on Boxing Day two years ago Tempelten turned on a stunning performance to come from last with a storming finish to win, running the last 600m in a remarkable 33.38.

A week later he couldn't beat the ambulance home in the Dunstan final, tailing right out.

Next start at Te Rapa he again tailed off by 49.9 lengths then came out at Ellerslie to win exactly the way he had done on Boxing Day.

He had gone from being enigmatic to being down right painful.

Fast forward to this Boxing Day and Tempelten displayed the perfect lead-up to Saturday's win, by beating only two home in the Dunstan qualifier, the race he won like Phar Lap two years earlier.

Perhaps the TAB could make one leg of the Pick6 guessing where Tempelten will finish.

Surely there must be a medal for persistence for owner Simon Rusbridge and trainers Sally Gillespie and Scott Lucock, particularly after the effort of their other big winner on the Thames programme Statham, who Rusbridge bred. Lucock describes Statham as a "real bastard" when he first joined the stable but that persistence has resulted in a very genuine, very honest racehorse.

Statham did well to hold off Gaston for a narrow win in the small field.

Congratulations team, these are two victories you thoroughly deserved.