The Pakenham trained Speediness (10) in the middle, overcame a wide run and a three-hour float trip to win the $70,000 TAB Sportsbet Handicap at Flemington on Saturday. 77549 Picture: Slickpix.com.au
By David Nagel
A three-hour float trip from Tynong to Flemington wasn’t enough to stop Colin Scott’s impressive four-year-old galloper Speediness from scoring a courageous victory in Saturday’s $70,000 TAB Sportsbet Handicap (1400m).
Roadwork’s in the Burnley Tunnel caused traffic chaos on the Monash Freeway and it was through the Pakenham network of trainers that Scott found out about the impending delay.
“John Gunning had a few runners at Geelong and he had one in the first race, his horses had trouble getting through and he called me to tell me to leave a bit earlier,” Scott said.
“It was hot day so it was a concern, by the time we got to the track he was sweating up badly, we hosed him down and got him settled pretty quickly, he was fine. He just wasted a lot of energy, that’s all.”
While the glitz and glamour of the day was understandably focused on Black Caviar as she equalled the Australian metropolitan record of 19 consecutive wins, hard-core racing enthusiasts couldn’t help but be impressed by the manner of the Speediness win.
Fractious in the gates and well back off a moderate tempo, the Testa Rossa gelding was trapped wide without cover before straightening, but was still able to cut down main danger Pago Rock despite the former Western Australian having a much sweeter run.
Scott was beaming with pride about his flagship horse after his fourth win from nine starts which lifted his career earnings to almost $218,000.
“This horse has never let me down, there were a lot of good horses in that race and he had no favours in the run but he still got home the last 600 in 34.03,” he said.
“All we’ve ever done is look after this horse, the owners have been so patient, and now he’s looking after us.
“It’s just a feeling of relief… relief and satisfaction.”
Speediness pulled up well from the run and licked his bin out on Saturday night, but after travelling poorly on a hot day and racing on an unsuit-ably hard track Scott plans to take it easy on his star galloper, for this week anyway.
“It’s good that we’ve got three weeks between that run and his next run, I’ll give him a soft week to recover then maybe find a quiet 1000-metre gallop somewhere,” Scott said.
Speediness’ next assignment will be the $200,000 Group Two Blamey Stakes (1600m) at Flemington on Super Saturday, 10 March. If all goes well then Pakenham’s finest will head to Sydney for further autumn spoils.
While his own horse gave him great pleasure on Saturday it was the site of Black Caviar winning the Light-ing Stakes that will stay with Scott for the rest of his days. Winning the immediate race after the champion gave Scott a unique opportunity to collect his very own piece of racing memorabilia.
“I’ve got the running double ticket, Black Caviar and Speediness, I’ll have to get it framed,” Scott laughed.
