 | RACING HISTORY |
YEAR: 1997
FEATURE RACE COMMENT
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| Merinai beats Buster Hanover and Wago Apollo |
Top horses normally collect a long list of superlatives as the go through their career. In the case of Merinai, she is simply brilliant. The 6-year-old Helensville-based mare completed her Addington assault with a sensational win in the $100,000 DB Draught Dominion Trotting Handicap.
Breaking and losing 20 metres at the start, regular pilot James Stormont had her up outside leader Bay Talent with a lap to travel. Despite not having the ideal trip, Merinai was still too good and defeated one of the best selections of trotting talent ever put together in the same race. "It's a fairytale come true, and it has only really hit me now," owner/trainer Ross Baker said after returning home earlier this week. "I was so pleased that it wasn't presented to her on a plate. If horses get a soft run then you're never sure how they would have gone if they had a tough one. She is new to the top grade too. She's had a peep at the big time but the Dominion field was right up with the best of them," he said.
Merinai's record now is 15 wins from 16 starts, but that could have all been different if Baker hadn't taken a close friend's advice some years ago. Baker had lost a Save Fuel filly out of of Merinai's dam Meriden. The time came to have her served again, so when Baker bumped into Frank Cooney at a Kumeu cattle sale, he asked him what were nice yearlings. "Frank had a couple by Tuff Choice; he said they had broken in very nicely with good manners and good gait. The stud had actually rung me a couple of days earlier, so Frank's advice sealed my decision. Tuff Choice had the record, and a bit of breeding, but he was a big rough horse when I saw him and I almost changed my mind to McKinzie Almahurst," Baker recalled.
Meriden foaled a lovely little filly some months later, and Baker called her Merinai. "She was a proper loaner. You just could not get near her and she wouldn't even come up for a scratch. Even as a foal if you ever did anything around the other horses, she'd walk away and go and do her own thing," he said. Merinai "broke in beautifully" as an early 2-year-old. "She was a faultless pacer, and I remember thinking I've got a nice horse her."
Baker's opinion changed when Merinai was brought back for her second preparation though. She just was not happy in her hopples and she tried to trot in them. On days when she knew I was going to work her I couldn't catch her in the paddock. One day I took the hopples off and she trotted like poetry in motion - the next day she was at the gate waiting for me." he said.
The time soon came for Baker to take his "baby" for her first run at the workouts. She was a 3-year-old, and it was at Alexandra Park, but Baker didn't have a driver. "I wanted someone with soft hands. Merinai wasn't soft in the mouth, she just needed to be driven by someone with light hands because she liked to do her own thing. I only knew James Stormont to say hello, but when I saw him that day I asked if he had a full book of drives. "I wouldn't have blamed him if he declined driving an unqualified trotter in an unqualified trot, but I saw him later and he agreed to take her out for me." Stormont returned after the event, and told Baker that if he wanted a driver to "take" Merinai through the classes he wanted to be that person. The rest is now history.
Home safe and sound again now, Merinai will be jogged down and swum over the Christmas period before Baker makes a decision about her next campaign. The Rowe Cup in May is an obvious target, and several Australian Clubs have also approached the Parakai horseman about getting his mare across the Tasmen.
Baker and Merinai's trip to Addington may have only been brief, but they have already developed fond memories of Christchurch's headquarters. "Southerners love trotting. Another thrilling part of her Dominion win was the warmth of the crowd and the way they adopted her," he said.
Credit: John Robinson writing in HRNZ Weekly