Lessons from Gosford

I went to Gosford on Monday to watch KW run and I thought I would pass on a few comments. After all the stormy weather, the track was rated a slow 6 but was upgraded to a dead 5 before KW's race. His first race on a wet track was a good one (the Zabeel coming out of him). After the race, jockey Josh Parr said he was confident that KW "should have easily run 3rd". After being switched to the outside, KW was making good ground but ducked in over the concluding stages and lost all momentum. Josh said the 1100m was too short for KW: "he wanted to plod along in the straight whilst the others sprinted". It is good to note that whilst the others were sprinting, KW was able to keep up with them whilst he was plodding along as Josh put it. Josh Parr’s other comment was that he "feels like a good 1400m or 1600m horse" and he "would love to ride KW over the mile". He said KW showed him that he has the ability, he is just not getting everything right yet.

The negatives were that Josh said KW wanted to do everything at a 100 miles per hour. Josh was struggling to hold KW back when they were running down to the barriers. Whilst in the barriers, KW also got a bit worked up. Whilst he settled better this time, he didn't settle 100%. Josh suggested giving KW another couple of runs over the shorter distances for education purposes. Gerald seemed more inclined to spell him but if he recovers well, he said he might have another run.

Gerald commented to me that KW has more talent than he is showing on the racetrack so far (this seems to be justified by the comments of Josh Parr and Rod Quinn). I think he expected KW to have won a decent race by now. Hopefully he can have a one more run where he can show more of his talent. We can then spell him and bring him back after the autumn carnival.

I think Mondays race was further evidence that being ridden quietly at the beginning of the race is definitely the right way to ride him. He reminds me a bit of Sam Sung A Song (also trained by Gerald a few years ago). He needed to be ridden stone cold and if he was, he had an amazing turn of foot in the straight. With KW getting fired up very easily in his races, I think that if he is ridden stone cold out the back, he may be better prepared mentally to have a greater finishing burst. The idea being to keep him relaxed until the final 200-300m of the race. That will also allow him to get over a bit more distance eventually.

I hope to see you all in the winners stall soon... all the best for 2009!!

Kind regards,
Steve