3 minute read
French jockey Louis-Philippe Beuzelin could not resist throwing a few fist pumps at his return to scales after the photo print finally went his way at his third ride on Sunday.
After agonisingly losing the last two races by a whisker – Jupiter Dragon , a nose, and Latent Power, a short head – Beuzelin thought the racing Gods had abandoned him again when odds-on favourite Rocket Star (Vlad Duric) grabbed his mount, the Lucky Stable-owned Implement ($25) on the line in the $50,000 Class 4 race over 1600m.
The judge called for the photo again. Expecting luck to desert him for the third time in a row, Beuzelin let out a big "yes!" or "oui!" when his horse's saddlecloth number (3) was semaphored on the Astrovision board.
"I got beaten twice by a nose. I was getting angry," said Beuzelin.
"This horse is really tough. He fought it out the whole straight, he's tough as nails.
"We had a bad draw, he had to make an effort to get to the front, but I was able to give him a breather. When JP's (Juan Paul van der Merwe) horse (Clarton Palace) came on the outside, he did well to hold it together.
"I tried to keep as much as possible in the tank for the last 200m, hoping there'd be enough in the tank. When Vlad's horse came up, I knew it would be close again, but luckily, we held on."
Rocket Star r certainly looked a moral to whoosh past when he came off an ideal one-out one-back position to collar Implement halfway up the home straight, but the Ricardo Le Grange-trained galloper couldn't quite go on with the job as soon as he drew on level terms.
Despite Duric's strong urgings, he stalled on his run, which allowed Implement to pick himself off the canvas for a gutsy nose-win. Implement's stablemate So Hi Class (Michael Rodd) ran on well to take third place another half-length away. The winning time was 1min 36.64secs for the 1600m on the Long Course.
"He had to be a pretty good horse to lead on the Long Course and just hold on the way he did today," said Clements.
"Louis is very happy as he just finished a short head second and lost the first by a nose. He was obviously nervous about that happening again."
A five-year-old Irish-bred son of Holy Roman Emperor, Implement was a one-time winner (over 1500m on soft ground) from two starts in Ireland, and has now recorded two wins and five placings from 13 local starts for prizemoney that has now shot past the $100,000 mark for the Lucky Stable.
