And The Winners...

1. Terravista (5 yr old gelding by Captain Rio from Parfore);

2. Chautauqua (4 yr old grey gelding by Encosta de Lago from Lovely Jubly);

3. Lankan Rupee (5 yr old gelding by Redoute's Choice from Estelle Collection).

 

Terravista, a lovely chestnut 5 year old, took out the Darley Classic today in Melbourne. I wasn’t really watching for this horse but it won in a hotly contested finish with the two horses I was most interested in, running second and third.

Terravista

The thing about major races that a lot of people fail to think about, is that there is big prize money for virtually every position all the way back to eighth. Horse racing exists for the breeding industry, and so, once a horse can fill a particular higher level – or ‘class’ of racing – the prize moneys are spread around in order to support and encourage animals to get in and to stay in those types of races; and of course, as a result, for breeders to look to producing that superior class of animal.

It is my own personal belief that the two that filled the minor placings – are being prepared more for next year’s Southern Hemisphere Autumn, rather than continue to try and prove anything more in this campaign. Even so, they won $180,000 and $90,000 respectively, for running second and third just in this race alone.

I thought it was a fascinating race, down the straight at Flemington – no turns – and this permitted the winner, who normally is used to going around in an opposite direction in races around an actual circuit, to still maintain the same leading-foot style for ‘left-to-right’ (clockwise circuit) racing that it is used to without having to adjust to the opposite way of going around.

 

Corthay's shoes...

typical French stuff, and good for New Orleans!

This race itself proved nothing other than that any of the first four or even five are extremely good race horses.

It’s very hard to try and convince someone who is not a racing fan to ‘understand’ and appreciate what good horse racing is all about. But hey, when you are back on the creaking deck-boards, late into the warm, dusky evening, and your polished Corthay cordovans are pampering your worked feet, and there is someone to talk to over your Bourbon, you need to have a topic of conversation that fits in with the atmosphere. It’s either Hank Williams singin’ or Jerry Lee Lewis honky-tonk rock-and-roll playing, or the breeding of the black type class race horses of the year and of the coming year. What else could it be?!

 

A brilliant conversationalist

The orange sun goes down, the paddle steamer splish-splashes down the river, the Bourbon stings your tongue, a meteor flashes across the night sky. Ah, life is good and has ever been thus.

Try and convince old money otherwise...