Settled Haky lands strong Flemington win

Saturday 25 April 2020, 4:21pm

When French import Haky arrived at the Ballarat stable of Archie Alexander, the trainer set about changing the stayer's racing style.

That work paid off on Saturday with Haky successful in the William Newton VC Handicap (2600m) while relegating Melbourne Cup winner and $1.90 favourite Vow And Declare into the beaten brigade.

Haky came to Melbourne for last year's spring carnival and showed his ability finishing third behind Melbourne Cup placegetter Prince Of Arran in the Geelong Cup.

After three runs for John Hammond, Haky was transferred to Alexander and after finishing rearwards in the Sandown Cup (3200m) in November his new trainer set about getting the gelding to relax.

Two runs this campaign showed Haky was adapting to that style and Alexander was confident of a forward showing on Saturday.

Tracking the speed set by Beau Balmain and Scholarly, Haky ($13) settled well for Declan Bates and after striking the lead early in the straight held off Sin To Win ($16) by three quarters of a length with Good Idea ($14) a further 1-1/2 lengths away third.

"I was adamant the minute I got this horse that he's not going to be leading anymore," Alexander said.

"We needed to teach him to settle and I think going the Australian way of trialling over 800 (metres), running over 1000 metres, running over a mile, the non-European things, has really taught this horse to relax and stop having his own way."

Alexander did not think Haky could beat Vow And Declare and thought he was racing for second place.

But he said if you could design the perfect race, Saturday's was it.

"The two horses in front were going a good gallop and we were behind them having a breather," Alexander said.

"It was just like a racecourse gallop, really. We were in third, had a bit of cover and when Declan had that bit of cover, he's a very tough horse."

After an early double courtesy of Flying Award and Naivasha, Vow And Declare was was expected to give trainer Danny O'Brien a treble.

After tracking Haky in the run, Vow And Declare did not showed his customary fight in the straight before finishing fifth.

"Obviously he was disappointing," O'Brien said.

"We'll just see how he pulls up and work out where we go from there but there are no excuses at all."

– AAP

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »