That leading NSW trainer Jodie Lord captured Tuesday night’s Beast Unleashed Gosford Gold Cup would be a surprise to nobody. It just didn’t work out the way most expected.
Lord had the short-priced favourite She’s A Pearl in the Cup. She was in form, had drawn perfectly in box one, and all was in place for her to add another $40,000 to her bulging prizemoney tally.
But racing can be a funny thing … although her supporters would have been doing anything other than laughing when She’s A Pearl ambled out of the boxes, and with that tardy beginning went her winning chance.
She was last at the winning post the first time, worked her way into fifth up the back, and even still looked a chance to run into the placings on the home turn, only to have no luck getting through the leading quartet in front of her, eventually finishing a luckless fifth.
But one of her two kennelmates in the Cup final, Punter’s Bandit, was able to jump sweetly, cross to the fence and settle behind the leader Reflections, and surge to the lead in the shadows of the post to grab the biggest win of her 24-start career in 29.37s.
Less than a month ago Punter’s Bandit finished fourth behind another kennelmate - Good Odds Emma – in the final of the Group 1 Sportsbet Megastar at Dapto.
Frank Hurst’s Mia She’s Fast ran a great race to get second just a neck behind Punter’s Bandit and even looked the winner halfway down the straight, while Jason Magri’s Zipping Novak ran on for third ¾ length away, with Reflections not far back in fourth, a length ahead of She’s A Pearl.
“It’s a big thrill. To win a race like this, a Group 2, we hadn’t got a group winner before this, but we've got one now and it's really good,” said Greg Maynard who is part of the Punters HQ Syndicate which own Punter’s Bandit.
“It means the world to me to own a dog like this, City class, that's the main goal owning dogs to have a city class dog. It's a big thrill, an absolute big thrill.”
Like most She’s A Pearl’s handler Paul Mills was stunned as the field left the boxes and his bitch was clearly last away.
“On the replay it looked like she knuckled over,” Mills said. “She just probably went a bit hard, but that’s racing and that’s what happens to even the best of them. But she is fine, and she wasn’t beaten far, and I reckon it was a big run.”
The super-consistent Zipping Maserati added to his impressive record with victory in the consolation of the Gosford Gold Cup, storming home to grab the leader Yuko Girl nearing the post in 29.44s.
“We just wanted him to come out half decent tonight and just have a sit there (behind Yuko Girl) and that's what he'd done and it’s worked out perfectly,” kennel representative Tyler Ginn said.
“It’s been a hard couple of months, he hasn't been 100% since The Gardens (the Black Top in October) but it's pretty hard not to press on with the Melbourne Cup coming up. So we gave him a few weeks off and a bit of a fresh up and he's come along nicely.”
Zipping Maserati has now won 25 of his 52 starts with a dozen placings and more than $212,000 in prizemoney.
