3 minute read
A bit of tinkering in the training of Watch Out Boss paid handsome dividends on Sunday, especially to those who took a chance with the $195 smokie.
Trainer Daniel Meagher revealed he went back to the drawing board with the Bullet Train six-year-old in the wake of his ordinary last start caused by feet worries – ninth to Gold Star in a Class 3 1000m race on July 18.
The Australian was obviously keen to see whether the new training and stable management of that setback would yield a good outcome in an identical speed scamper with a purse of $70,000 on Sunday, even if the former Kuda Bagus (Malay for 'good horse') was up against an even hotter field comprising the likes of Sun Ops, Ararat Lady and Songgong Hera.
As it turned out, with the scratching of the last two, it left only Desmond Koh's speed merchant and red-hot favourite Sun Ops in the way, but Watch Out Boss fed off a merciless three-way battle upfront to unleash an explosive turn of foot under new partner Matthew Kellady towards a most dominant 2 ¼-length win.
From the ruck, Hugo (Yusoff Fadzli) let down nicely for a meritorious second half-a-length clear of Man Of Mystery (Saifudin Ismail) while Sun Ops (Oscar Chavez), who was one of the three protagonists who set the early sizzling sectionals, while trapped three deep, carved up badly to run eighth. The vet report later revealed he had bled.
The other two cut-throaters, Ablest Ascend (Wong Chin Chuen) and Sky Eye (Simon Kok Wei Hoong), unsurprisingly suffered the same fate. They knocked up to finish seventh and ninth respectively.
Owned wholly by Meagher himself, Watch Out Boss ran the 1000m in a slick 58.34secs, 0.64 second outside Nova Swiss's course record.
The gist of Meagher's regimen change resided in keeping Watch Out Boss as fresh as he could be after that last race from which he returned the worse for wear.
"He's a very genuine horse. I didn't trial him going into today's race," he said.
"That's because he had a few issues with his feet after his last race. The farrier corrected those issues over a period of time.
"I tried something different by keeping him fresh. He impressed me with his gallop over the week.
"I own him and it's great he's won a Class 3 race for the first time."
Indeed, all his previous four wins have come at Class 4 grade in Polytrack events, for a record that now stands at five wins, six seconds and six thirds from 27 starts for somewhere around $260,000 in stakes.
Meagher stood a solid chance of ending Sunday's 11-race programme with a double, but favourite Lady Sprintbok let him and her punters down in the finale, the $50,000 Class 4 Division 1 race over 1200m won by Universal Empire.
Regular partner Danny Beasley had the Written Tycoon four-year-old in an ideal one-out one-back position throughout but when the pressure came down, she was flat as a pancake, and could only beat two home.
"She had every chance, but she was disappointing," he said.
"The 57.5kgs probably didn't help her. It was to her detriment."
