Gear Change Helps Mare Snare Overdue Group Win

The Sunday Age

Sunday February 20, 2005

By MICHAEL LYNCH

A CHANGE of gear did the trick for Lee Freedman' s consistent mare Beautiful Gem, who posted a hard-fought group 2 victory in the Eliza Park Sunline Stakes yesterday.

Freedman dispensed with the blinkers and fitted the Peintre Celebre four-year-old with a visor for the first time, and Beautiful Gem was able to see the challenge of Umber ($7) coming and respond to Damien Oliver's riding to win by a head. Charmed Lady ($14) narrowly took third place ahead of the frontrunning Niagara Falls.

Beautiful Gem came into this weight-for-age contest under favourable conditions, having met several of this field in handicap races where she invariably had to concede weight.

It was a point Freedman acknowledged: "This was a terrific race for her today. I think the visor was the winning move and its nice to win a group 2 race with her."

Earlier Lloyd Williams' Zabeel gelding Refute ($1.75) kept himself in Sydney Cup calculations with a narrow win over outsider Many Are Called ($11) in the Slade Bloodstock Trophy (2040m). It was not, however, the most impressive of victories, as he took a while to get going and see off his opposition.

Nevertheless his strike rate (six wins from 10 starts) is impressive.

Both jockey Danny Nikolic and owner Williams believed his sluggish-looking performance could be attributed to the tightness of the Valley circuit and the relative shortness of the race.

"I think he's better on a bigger track," said Nikolic. "He seemed to be chopping his stride a bit and he just didn't let down as well as he can. I think he'll run the trip (3200-metres) out in Sydney."

Williams said Refute would improve over 2400 metres and beyond. "He's a staying horse and he needs to get on to a bigger track and get one-and-a-half miles or two. Whether he's good enough for the Sydney Cup I don't know, but we will keep trying and persevering with him." Refute's next target will be a 2500-metre race at Flemington.

Earlier in the day Future Perfect ($9.50) showed once again what a bargain he would have been had some potential owners from Adelaide gone through with a recent plan to buy him for $8000.

Trainer Jamie Edwards explained that they had pulled out, thinking the price was too high. The eight-year-old has since won at Colac before earning $32,500 when he gave apprentice Ricky Debono his fifth city win yesterday.

"He's for sale. He's now won twice since the deal fell through and earned $50,000. This horse would be a ripper in Adelaide. We ran him last week and he pulled up enormous so we had no hesitation in running him again today," said Edwards.

Caulfield trainer John Moloney landed his third city winner of the week when four-year-old mare Songs Of Vienna scored a first-up win in the TBV mares handicap under Blake Shinn. Shinn waited patiently on the rails and a run eventually came for the $11 shot, who got up to defeat favourite Dance at Ascot ($3.20) and topweight Cosmic Beam ($7.50).

Paris Zero ($7) gave the Brian Mayfield Smith-Stephen Baster combination a win in the last race when she got home by a half-neck from Watchyerback ($9).

© 2005 The Sunday Age

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