 | RACING HISTORY |
YEAR: 2010
FEATURE RACE COMMENT
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She is one of the most exciting trotting fillies seen in years, and she is still yet to taste defeat after another sparkling performance at Addington last Friday night.
Shezoneoftheboyz has been a real 'find' this season, and last week she showed just how good she is when she won the $80,000 Paul & Pauline Renwick NZ Trotting Derby. The Group 1 event went against the run of play as it unfolded, and those who backed Shezoneoftheboyz into a $1.50 favourite wouldn't have liked seeing her three-deep when the field started the last lap. She improved one position when the trailling Kahdon edged into the running line nearing the home bend though, and once straightened at the top of the straight she burst through along the passing lane to win going away.
It was an emphatic way to register win number five from as many outings, and the icing on the cake for the daughter of Brylin Boyz was her time for the 2600m event - 3.17.7, which smashed the existing NZ Record for a 3-year-old trotting filly by nearly two and a half seconds!
It was also an occasion that Mark Jones will never forget either, because Shezoneoftheboyz gave him his first Group 1 victory as a trainer on the very same day that he turned 31. "I probably drove her a bit negatively if anything," Jones said afterwards, talking about his decision to take a trail behind Kahdon after 500 metres. "I knew the 2600m would find a few out though. But if I didn't train her myself I probably would not have handed up, because she's good enough to lead all the way."
Although appearing cool, calm and collected on the outside, Jones admitted to feeling a fair amount of stress that most would not have known about. "I had quite a few nerves leading up to this event," he said. "But you take pride in training your horses, and it is a bit different when you've got the hot favourite heading into a Group 1. The staff know I've been on edge lately."
Jones's association with Shezonoftheboyz has been fairytale stuff right from the word go. Formerly trained by Neil Munro, Jones first drove the filly at the trials last August when she had her first run back, and within a fortnight they had won two qualifying heats together - one by 47 lengths, the other by 17, and she earned her 'ticket' with the latter performance. "She won it really easily, going a tick over 3.11 on a cold day at Ashburton and home in twenty-eight. Not many do that," he said.
Australian horseman Craig Demmler was negotiating the filly's sale at that stage, having flown across the Tasman to drive her himself, and bigger slices of Shezonoftheboyz became available as time went by. "The initial owners were originally selling only a half share, and I had a syndicate jacked up to buy it. But it fell through; they will be regretting it now. Then about six weeks later she was for sale outright, and Craig got Peter to take her."
Peter is Peter Chambers, a Victorian who Jones has had dealings with before through Alexis which was sold to him out of his stable. Chambers is also the owner of the now 4-year-old trotter Jumanji Franco, and Shezoneoftheboyz will soon try to achieve what the former couldn't when running fourth to Pocaro at Ashburton at the end of May last year. "He just wants to win the Jewels," Jones says. "I have only met him twice - when Shezoneoftheboyz won at Ashburton in February, and again tonight; he flew over from Jakarta especially." The Harness Jewels are at Cambridge this year, and Chambers will have two right royal chances of winning a Ruby now that the Joanne Burrows-trained Jumanji Franco has found her best form again and won her last three on end.
It's Shezoneoftheboyz that will be one of the star attractions at this year's carnival though, and Jones can't speak highly enough of the filly, although you would be hard-pressed picking that it is the same horse if you saw her in training. "She wouldn't beat a maiden at home," he said. "She's a terrible trackworker. Take her off the place though, and she'll run a quarter in twenty-seven no trouble - round home, she never breaks thirty-four. But she's just the perfect racehorse. She's got high speed, and is very tough. And she's got this unbelievable attitude - she puts her head down and just doesn't want to get beat. To look at her she's got this amazing way of going, an effortless gait. Potentially she could be a very good open class trotter, and that's what I've said to Peter all along. So we're going to look after her."
Credit: John Robinson writing in HRWeekly 31Mar10