KEY POINTS:
Stu Manning wasn't greatly surprised when he fielded a phone call yesterday to advise him Katy Keen's jockey had broken his shoulder.
Manning is a local at Tauranga, where they will run Saturday's $150,000 First Sovereign Rotorua Cup, yet says it is his hoodoo track.
"I should really
have been expecting the call," said Manning as he swallowed his disappointment and quickly booked Vinny Colgan to replace Bosson.
Katy Keen is the hot favourite for Saturday's feature - attempting to win her seventh straight race - and switching jockeys late is an unwelcome distraction.
"Nothing against Vinny, I'm sure he'll ride her well - and she's not normally a difficult horse to ride - but something like this doesn't exactly make you happy. It's just another thing that could have gone wrong for me at Tauranga. I'm jinxed there."
As far back as his first headline horse, Syndrome in the mid-1970s, Manning says his Tauranga luck has been all uphill.
"Syndrome, like this mare, won five straight and it should have been six. The start before that winning sequence started she was trotting in behind the leaders turning for home and got flattened and sent back to the rear. She stormed home to finish third then won her next five straight.
"I've had two horses bleed at Tauranga and one that broke down so badly in both front legs that the jockey had to bail out.
"And another one that I thought would win the saddle slipped on completely.
"The greatest certainty I every lined up was at Tauranga. She was funny in the gates and I told the jockey not to move on her at the start. He did and she reared so badly she lost a huge amount of ground then flew home for third. She would have won for fun.
"There's nothing wrong with the track - only my luck there."
On the positive side, Manning is delighted with the way Katy Keen has come through her stunningly easy win in last Saturday's $130,000 Travis Stakes.
* * *
If that's the way the jumping season is going to go we're in for some highlights.
That's paraphrasing jumps jockey Tom Hazlett as the re-vamped jumping season got off to a roaring start at Te Rapa yesterday.
Hazlett wasn't just referring to the fact he won the open hurdle race on the favourite Ravanelli. He sees real potential in the new concept for jumping programmes.
"Full credit particularly to the northern trainers for having their horses up and ready to be competitive so early," said Hazlett. "If that's the way they're going to present horses in numbers to make up such good-sized fields it's going to be very exciting."
Just The Man, rising 12, showed age is no hurdle when he took the first race over the big fences, the Ken and Roger Browne Memorial Steeplechase.
Waterhouse won the minor hurdles and Loki was successful in the maiden steeplechase.
