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Champion trainer Mark Walker’s recent drive to tap into the Sydney market in search of lightly-raced castoffs gained further traction when a former Chris Waller named Inherit scored on debut on Sunday.
Walker has been on a shopping spree buying former expensive yearlings who were put back in the Sydney market at a depreciated value after results fell below expectations, such as ex-Godolphin Beau Geste and Barbeque as well as Augustus and Barbarian – all winners except for the latter.
Inherit is another fine example of Walker's knack at sniffing up a good bargain. An A$180,000 purchase as a yearling, the son of Pierro made only about a fifth of that price tag in eight starts, with his only win recorded on a debut in a 1200m race at Newscastle in July 2018.
Waller then sent him to the big smoke at Rosehill and Warwick Farm, with underwhelming results that told the Sydney champion trainer he was probably just a midweeker.
Inherit raced another five times on the provincial circuit, without success, before he fell on Walker's radar screen as an interesting resale proposition.
The two-time Singapore champion trainer didn't expect a winning debut from Inherit in Sunday's $50,000 Class 4 Division 1 race, especially as he thought the six furlongs would be on the sharp side, but Inherit came off a soft run behind the leaders to round up his nine rivals rather easily.
Ridden by Azhar Ismail, Inherit collared leader Super Win (Matthew Kellady) at the 200m before clearing out for a 1 ½-length win, clearly not fully extended. Super Win did a good job to hold on for second place considering he had to endure pressure from the outside for most of the way.
Magnum Force (Daniel Moor) did come into contention at the top of the straight, but the last-start winner could not quite finish it off to settle for third place, beaten a nose by Super Win. The winning time was 1min 12.15secs for the 1200m on the Polytrack.
"He's a nice horse who won once over 1200m in Australia and was placed once over 1900m (at Canterbury)," said Walker.
"I think he's better than Class 4 and he will get much better over more distance. He probably needed every bit of the 1200m today, he was outgrounded.
"It's become very hard to buy yearlings these days, and this proves we can still buy horses at the right price while they still have some upside about them.
"He was well ridden by Azhar as well. He gave him every chance."
The veteran Malaysian rider was content with taking a drop in midfield while keeping an eye on the speed battle being wagered between Super Win, Magnum Force, King Zoustar (Louis-Philippe Beuzelin) and Awesome (Yusoff Fadzli) upfront.
Into the home straight, the quartet were still locking horns, but it all counted for nothing when Inherit came as the fresh legs on the scene to score a most impressive win.
