Freedman Racing - Lee On Racing

MOONEE VALLEY
BOOKIESONLINE.COM.AU PLATE Race 1 - 6:45pm
1,000 m
FAST TALKER
GIBRALTAR MOON
IGA LOCAL HEROES HCP (68) Race 2 - 7:15pm
2,040 m
IMPERSONATOR
KING OF SHEBA
IVANHOE HOTEL HCP (C1) Race 6 - 9:15pm
1,200 m
GRECIAN CHOICE
PAKENHAM
QUINN CIVIL/ ACCESS BORING MDN Race 2 - 1:00pm
1,400 m
DAN FALBRAV
CARDINIA CLUB MDN PLATE Race 3 - 1:35pm
1,400 m
KNAPTON

CAULFIELD
CYSTIC FIBROSIS CARRIER HCP Race 5 - 1,400 m
ROCK HOME LATE
THE NOUGHTIES
C F V PARTNERSHIP PLATE Race 8 - 1,100 m
LET LOUSHE
CRANBOURNE
WINDY PEAK MDN PLATE Race 1 - 1,000 m
FLY TO RIO

Photos provided courtesy of Bloodstock Trader

Super Saturday, a day for emerging champions

7th March, 2008

Lee Freedman.1.jpg

Friday 7th March for The Age

THE Super Saturday concept has worked well for the Victoria Racing Club, and tomorrow again looks like being a real crowd-pleaser.

For a start, it stars many of the best horses in training, has been well publicised in all forms of the media and the way the weather is shaping, it looks the perfect recipe for a record crowd.

We shouldn't underestimate the effect that equine influenza has had on reshaping the carnival dates this year, and with the big Sydney autumn carnival still a few weeks off, the VRC may benefit from not having a competing interest as it has done so many times in the past.

It's a day I've always enjoyed, and the stable has had its fair share of success here, with the great Schillaci winning the Newmarket on this weekend in 1992. He had won the Lightning Stakes and the Oakleigh Plate at his previous two runs and was having only his sixth race start in the Newmarket and beat stablemate Storaia to give us the quinella in the big sprint.

Schillaci went on to become one of the most loved and enduring champions of his era, but he probably never raced better than that autumn.

Only one other horse in the modern period achieved this feat, and he, too, was a champion — Placid Ark.

It moves me to compare tomorrow's favourite, Weekend Hussler, with the great grey. The Hussler is only a three-year-old, lightly raced and is still inexperienced, but like Schillaci, he has that special aura about him that makes seasoned racing men say that he could be the biggest of next big things.

Certainly, he has a way to go to be compared with the greats, but I am a believer and look forward to seeing him in action again tomorrow.

After Schillaci, our next Newmarket Handicap winner was with a brilliant three-year-old filly, Alinghi. She was a star from her first run and she went into the big sprint as a winner, already, of the Blue Diamond Stakes and the Thousand Guineas.

The Newmarket is difficult for any horse to win, let alone a filly, but she was exceptional and her fellow three-year-old Fastnet Rock, now one of the most sought-after stallions in Australia, had beaten her narrowly in the Lightning Stakes. In the Newmarket, we received 2.5 kilograms in weight from "the Rock" and that was enough. It was a breathtaking win by one of the best fillies of recent times.

Our other Newmarket winner last year was just as brilliant and durable. Miss Andretti had come off a string of weight-for-age wins and was asked to carry 56.5 in the Newmarket, which was run at Caulfield due to the reconstruction of Flemington.

She had to overcome a champion three-year-old filly in Gold Edition to win. She prevailed in a close photo and later last year, wrote her name further in the record books by capturing the Kings Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot.

Similarly, the stable's two wins in the Australian Cup were achieved by great horses. Durbridge came to us as an older horse and while his lead-up form was impeccable, he wasn't favourite.

His three-year-old stablemate, Mahogany, was in great form and was heavily tipped to win, but Durbridge, under a perfect Simon Marshall ride, prevailed. He went on to win another three group 1s after the Australia Cup.

It seems an instant ago that the greatest of them all won the cup, Makybe Diva, on the day Alinghi won the Newmarket in an Australian 1200 metres record. The BMW, Cox Plate and a third Melbourne Cup awaited her.

The common thing with these horses is that they were all exceptional and needed to be to win these great races.

Our Australian Guineas winners were noteworthy.

Flying Spur narrowly beat the filly Saleous in 1996. He has since gone on to be a champion stallion and suggests that the Australian Guineas could well prove to be a "stallion-maker".

Mr Murphy was an in form Johnny-on-the-spot in 2001, but he broke a little group 1 drought for me that year and I will always be grateful to him for that!

Everyone says these races lack a real champion this year, but that's the beauty of racing and we may be about to see one or possibly two emerge. If you think they are easy to win, just look at history and rethink things.

Article Date	Title
4th August, 2008	A progressive option is required for Werribee
6th May, 2008	Time to lock in Sydney dates
7th March, 2008	Super Saturday, a day for emerging champions
25th February, 2008	As racing gallops into trouble, time for reform
19th October, 2007	A Very Special Quadrella
12th October, 2007	A Melting Pot Of Players Feel the EI Heat
27th June, 2007	A New World Of Racing