 | RACING HISTORY |
YEAR: 1981
FEATURE RACE COMMENT
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| A jubilant Brent Smith and his wife Carol with Met President Murray Taylor and his wife Rana |
A few weeks ago, Brent Smith confessed he had one ambition: to win the New Zealand Cup with Armalight to prove he owned the best horse in the country. No, he wasn't worried that she might be up against the likes of Delightful Lady or Bonnie's Chance or, at that stage, Hands Down. His mare would match any of them. And so, last Tuesday, it proved. Delightful Lady wasn't there but the others were.... and they weren't just beaten. They were thrashed.
Armalight won the $100,000 New Zealand Cup by an ever widening seven lengths after siting in the open outside the pacemaker for all the journey. Apart, that is, from the last 800 metres when Bob Negus sprinted her into the lead and sailed home to greet the judge in a 57 second last section, a phenomenal effort.
"That just proves it," the young Christchurch owner-trainer said as he waited for his mare to come back to scale. "She's a real champion." You couldn't really argue with that. To win the country's most presitious two mile test on only a three-race build-up, and to be a mare in season at the same time, takes a talent a little out of the ordinary.
Nineteen starts now she's had, counting the Cup, and she's won thirteen and been placed in five for stakes of close to $140,000. She was a champion three-year-old...and now at five, it looks as though she'll further cement her claim to the "champion" tag.
Armalight, by Timely Knight out of a Sapling Stakes and Oaks winner in Ar Miss, was off the racing scene from May 1980 until only a few weeks ago. She was badly frightened after training one day, took off and was lucky to escape injuries serious enough to permanently end her career on the track. It's been a long road back. But the patience and perseverence have paid off. She's been in work again since March for Smith - she's the only horse he trains - and she's been to the trials probably half a dozen times this season. Not a racing build-up, one would have thought, to fit a horse to become the first mare since Loyal Nurse away back in 1949. But Smith, an amateur trainer when he is not working in the load-out dock at the City Abattoir, obviously knew what he was doing.
He said after the event he knew she "would go a big race. But you can't be too confident in the New Zealand Cup, especially after seeing what Hands Down did to us from 25 metres behind at Kaikoura," he confessed.
A few minutes later he held the shimmering gold trophy aloft to the cheers of the 19,000 Addington crowd and told them his pride and joy had come into season only the day before. "I could have sent her to the stud tomorrow," he said. That probably depended on whether she'd won or lost. Instead, though, he'd line her up on the later days of the meeting.
With Smith on the victory platform was his wife Carol who a few minutes earlier had, in spite of the tension and joy of her moment of victory, told reporters "she's a great mare. She always tries." That Armalight tries all the time was substantiated by Bob Negus, probably as happy a man as there was on course. Now fifty, Negus has been driving horses for 27 years and never before has he taken part in the Cup. "I've been waiting for a drive in the Cup, but it's been a case of having to wait," he said. And then the wry confession: "I couldn't have driven the horse worse, parked out like that. Being in front wouldn't have been much better but I couldn't get there. Alec Milne wouldn't let me. Still, she's a top mare and she takes her racing and training very seriously...like a good pupil at school. You've got to hand it to Brent. He's made a great job of her. He's done everything he can to make sure everything's right."
It was Negus who drove Armalight to her first win two seasons ago at Westport, and he's driven her in most of her races since. He, too, came in for his share of the public praise from Smith for all his help in making Armalight the champion she is. "I'm just an amateur in all ways," he said. "I've got to thank Bob for all he's done to help me."
It's raceday history now that Armalight won the Cup with a superb 4:08.7 run, a mile rate of just a tick over 2:05. And it's history, too, that Bonnie's Chance and odds-on favourite Hands Down were her closest rivals, a neck apart, at the line. Their drivers, Richard Brosnan and Peter Jones, had no excuses. Bonnie's Chance was in the trail behind Watbro only to be pushed back to last when that horse packed it in at the 400 metres. With the other nine in front of him, and Armalight lengths clear, Brosnan had to take his mare way out to the middle of the track to get a run, but it was all too late. "Another round and we might have caught her," he said. "Still, second is better than third ... and a lot better than sixth. Maybe next year ..." Brosnan said Bonnie's Chance had begun well to settle in the trail. He thought Watbro might have stuck on a little longer but instead he just plodded on while the others improved round him.
Hands Down, on the other hand, was, as usual, content to sit at the back on the outer of the bunch until the 1200 metres. Jones took him forward from there with a big run to be three wide outside Glen Moria with 400 metres to go. They headed the chase after Armalight in the straight but "just wasn't good enough on the day" to make it two Cups in a row. "Kaikoura proved he was fit enough, but today Armalight was too good," Jones said.
Idolmite, three back on the outer most of the way, stuck on for fourth ahead of the Aussie, Gammalite. The winner of 40 of his 71 starts before crossing the Tasmen for the Cup meeting, Gammalite didn't get much of a chance to show his true worth. He and northern hope John Tudor broke at the start, "and I just can't explain that at all," driver Bruce Clarke said later. "He's always reliable from a stand." And then, when he went to improve from the back with 1100 metres to go, the gap wasn't there between El Regale and John Tudor and he momentarily locked wheels with John Noble's drive. Once clear he too was up wide for the rest of the trip and battled away to collect the $3,000 fifth stake. "It was a good run. I'm not complaining," Clarke said. The other five were well beaten. There could have been no excuses.
On the day, it was Armalight all the way. It was her day.
Credit: Graham Ingram writing in NZ Trotting Calendar