 | RACING HISTORY |
YEAR: 2006
FEATURE RACE COMMENT
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| Pay Me Christian holds out Monkey King, Awesome Armbro (11) & Classic Line (5) |
From Kerr's seat in the Public Stand, he thought Pay Me Christian had got it; but it wasn't until a fellow supporter dashed down to watch the instant replay of the finish and gave the 'thumbs up' that Kerr could actually let go of the breath that he was holding. "Along with the Oaks and the New Zealand Cup, this is one of the three races that I've always wanted to win," Kerr said afterwards. "The Derby's such a prestigious event, because it's been around for nearly a hundred years. And to me it's always the first real glimpse of what's to come when they're four or five-year-olds. Quite often the first three home in the Derby will go on to become good open class horses, even great ones."
Being his final outing for the season, and last ditch attempt at winning a Derby at three, Friday was 'D-Day' for Pay Me Christian in a lot of ways too - especially from his pending stud career's perspective. Automatically 'valued' at a million dollars when a half share in the colt was sold to Nevele R Stud for $500,000 back in December, that sort of money demands results. Kerr knew that better than anyone else, and after Pay Me Christian had run last seven days earlier things were even more intense.
"You wouldn't be human if you didn't feel some sort of pressure in that situation," he admitted. "So I'm glad he won this, because the horse deserved it. With an ounce of luck he could've won either of the Great Northern or Victorian Derbys, or quite easily finished with all three - and then people would've been talking about him in a totally different way. He's been the best 3-year-old this season, no doubt, and in winning the Sires'Stakes Final and NZ Derby he got the two big ones."
Pay Me Christian was heading out for a spell regardless of where he finished on Friday night, and Kerr says he deserves that too. "Yes, he was starting to show signs that he was coming to the end of it," he agreed. His zip wasn't quite there, and he was a little bit leg-weary after all the miles he's done. When we came back from Aussie he was a wee bit tired, and we knew we had to tread lightly for a while - that's why he was probably a tad on the fresh side for his race last week. He's only had nine starts as a three-year-old, but it's been a long season for him. People forget that he was up as early as July, and that he's had to peak three or four times during the year. And more and more lately he's started to realise that he's a colt. He thinks he's the king of the castle round home, running around the paddock and calling out; he covers a lot more ground during the week than most horses."
Pay Me Christian will be out for three months, with Kerr wanting him to resume around mid-October so that he has a couple of runs under his belt before "possibly" tackling the Junior Free-For-All on Cup Day. "The Miracle Mile is his main target before Christmas, so we'll be chasing a start in it, and after that there's the Chariots, perhaps another trip to Australia, and then back to New Zealand for our two big 4-year-old features in Auckland. Next time in we're going to experiment a bit and give him a lot more beach training. We're that close to one, so we're going to make use of it and keep him away from the track as much as possible in between races. There's nothing wrong with his legs whatsoever, it's just something we're going to try to give him a bit of variety and keep him mentally fresh."
At the end of Pay Me Christian's 4-year-old season is when Nevele R Stud and the syndicate that races him will sit down and discuss things. Regardless of when the career change eventuates, Kerr has no doubt about what sort of sire he'll be - not only because of the fact that he's by Christian Cullen, or won eight of his 13 starts thus far, but also because he's got a "terrific" dam's family.
"You just wait until he steps out again next season - he'll let down into a magnificent stallion. At the moment he's still a bit of a boy in that respect, we're only halfway there."
Credit: John Robinson writing in HRWeekly 5Apr06