 | RACING HISTORY |
YEAR: 2008
FEATURE RACE COMMENT
 |
Once upon a time, Paul Nairn took a horse to the Coast and couldn't win a maiden with him. The trotter raced with aplomb on both days at Westport and then again at Reefton, but still it was three months before he cleared the ranks of beginners; hardly anything to get excited about. Today, he's square-gaiting's latest superstar - the new benchmark that all other top trotters have to aspire to.
Such has been the meteoric rise of a 6-year-old that is known simply as Stig. "I wasn't even sure he would make a horse to begin with," Nairn recalled. "And when I first got him I didn't think much at all about what sort of potential he had - I was just trying to see what he could do. He only qualified a couple of weeks before he went to the Coast, and he was always a bit awkward in his gait so you couldn't let him go or he would break. And because of that I started to worry I was teaching him not to try. But he was always a willing horse that would do what you wanted him to."
Stig continued his dominance with another emphatic victory at Addington last Friday night, his fourth from five outings this term, and as far as trotting events go it was as big as they come - the $300,000 Heller Tasty Dominion. Things didn't pan out for the Armbro Invasion gelding during the running though, and driver David Butt even admitted afterwards that he thought they were in trouble with a lap to run.
At that stage he and Stig were last on the outside and stuck in a three-wide train that was going nowhere, a situation that Butt counteracted by launching the gelding four-wide down the back straight. Horse and pilot were still fair coasting around the home bend though, despite the exertion, and they sailed down the home straight to win comfortably in the end by nearly a length in close to record time.
"This is a big thrill," Nairn said. "Because it is a special event, with a lot of history attached." The Leeston trainer has been to the top of the Dominion tree before, having also won the event back in 1995 with Call Me Now, but he stops short of drawing any similarities between the two great trotters. "It's hard to compare horses from different eras," he said. "But Call Me Now was a real good stayer, and so is this bloke."
Nairn wasn't entirely happy with the way Stig was trotting leading up to last week's Dominion, which gives the horse's performance even more notoriety. "He has never been a perfect-gaited trotter, but compared to what he was like as a 4-year-old he is a lot better this season. It's hard to have them dead right all the time."
-o0o-
The winner of 12 races and over $406,000 will now have a month out, and Nairn says Stig's next main target is the Rowe Cup in May. During his spell, Stig will have a nagging area near his off-hind fetlock attended to. Some stitches haven't dissolved like they should have following the operation Stig had to remove a piece of sesamoid bone, and Nairn says it's little more than a "pimple-like" superficial wound that weeps from time to time and hasn't affected his ability to perform whatsoever.
He does thank his lucky stars when thinking about the last time Stig had to have an enforced latoff though. "He fractured his sesamoid, and could have very easily been history," he said. "But sometimes things go right, and sometimes they don't. Take Inspire for example, she was working as good a Stig but then broke a pastern in training a couple of months ago. She is in foal to Sundon, but I would like to have another go with her. That's the plan anyway."
Nairn is one of harness racing's greatest trainers, and his effort in producing Stig to win the Canterbury Park Trotting Cup first-up this season - the horse's first appearance for nearly a year - was a truly remarkable feat. yet he is almost 'embarrassed' by any moment in the spotlight, preferring instead to extol the virtues of either the horse or whoever's sitting behind them on racenight rather than take any credit himself.
With a horse of Stig's quality in the stable though, speeches on the victory dias are something that he might just have to get used to. "He has got all the right ingredients," Nairn said, answering the question about whether Stig could be one of the sport's all-time greats. "He's pretty relaxed and doesn't pull in his races, and he can make his own luck. Plus he can stay, and he has got enough speed. So he has got a bit going for him, for sure."
Strangely enough, Nairn has never trained a pacing winner. "The first horse I ever took to the races was a pacer, one that belonged to my grandfather called Spanish Lace. But I've got one at home at the moment that I reckon could win a couple. "She is four and named Carlo's Call, and is actually by Call Me Now - out of a mare that could pace and trot."
Credit: John Robinson writing in HRWeekly 26Nov08