“Patience is bitter but its fruit is sweet” said the great Aristotle.
Born 384BC, a student of Plato, who we have spoken about before in this column, and tutor to Alexander the Great, Aristotle wrote extensively on philosophy, politics, ethics, science, logic, biology and human behaviour.
In ethics, he argued that a good life came through developing virtue, exercising reason and finding balance between extremes (if only our politicians could do the same).
Trainer Matt Hoysted always had an opinion of an unraced daughter of WRITTEN TYCOON. This allowed the ownership group to steer clear of Aristotle’s extreme of blind persistence. His confidence gave us reason to keep going, rather than exercising the other easy extreme – impatience.
For around 36 months we paid the bills on SUBPOENA COLADA. On Sunday, she finally made it to the races, won on debut and recouped a portion of our outlay (especially if you took the $3.50 late).
As Aristotle supposedly said, “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”
Sunday tasted pretty sweet.
Her time was solid, although not as quick as the Class 2 in the following race. But SUBPOENA COLADA has plenty to learn and it’s quite possible she has more improvement to come than any horse that raced at the meeting.
Her best asset? Gate speed.
She’s a rocket through the first 80m and that gives her an enormous head start tactically. As we saw with ANGEL CAPITAL in the Missile Stakes, you can have oodles of ability, but it means little if you’re constantly relying on luck in running.
SUBPOENA COLADA’s early speed means she can make a lot of her own luck.
Just on the Missile Stakes – NINJA won and don’t be surprised if he gets an Everest slot. He’s got a lovely, big stride on him and reeled off the fastest split of the day between the 1000m and 800m when Tommy Berry had to push on wide no cover. His win had hidden merit and the rating we gave him on our backend database suggests he can mix it with some of our better sprinters.
I wouldn’t want to see him at 1200m again before the Everest – back to 1100m probably makes him a risk but that will keep the speed in his legs for the big one.
Proven’s week began with IN CIRCLES at Gosford on Thursday. She was first-up and went for a bath in betting drifting from $6.50 to $11.
Someone forgot to tell the horse that and she got within 1L of the winner to grab 3rd and run a career peak rating.
The best part about this performance was the learning curve for us. She averaged 11.6 through the first section on Thursday – previous two runs were 12.2 and 12.3.
What does that mean? She relishes a fast tempo. Rather than being a nippy horse she prefers to absorb high pressure and keep finding. It could also suggest she will get 1400m.
ELLE HUDSON bounced in to Randwick on Saturday with back-to-back wins under the belt. He was back up to BM78 grade and the tempo here was much stronger than his previous two victories.
His cruising speed was more than half a second faster per 200m and that perhaps worked against him, particularly on a drying track. Also playing against him was the fact he went 4 wide around the bend – 8 of the 10 winners were in lanes 1 or 2 at the 600m.
His rating was almost identical to his previous wins. The horse is going well – it just wasn’t his day.
COLUMBIA BLUE got back and charged home once clear in the BM78 1200m contest. He clocked the best last 400/200m of the race and the 5th fastest final section of the day. He made his run wider than any winner on the day – this performance highlights the rare form he’s in and in different circumstances he wins. This run also demonstrated his versatility on Heavy and Good tracks.
This weekend Proven has the old boy PRIVATE EYE back at the races in defence of his G2 PB Lawrence Stakes (1400m) title at Caulfield. COSMIC CRUSADER is the horse we have to beat but map can be key at Caulfield, especially over 1400m where they start turning shortly after the barriers open. That barrier draw will be key. Chat next week.
Nic Ashman is a form expert who has developed his own times rating system to assess races. He is the host of The Beaten Favourite podcast and appears on several other racing media outlets. For a more detailed summary of the past weekend’s racing, you can listen to ‘The Monday Podcast’ episode by The Beaten Favourite HERE.