Gotyou Again In Vase
Saturday, 25 October 2008:  | | Photo by Bronwen Healy |
Two year's ago Michael Rodd rode a patient race on the grey Efficient, before storming home to score an impressive win.
He turned in a similar performance to take the Victoria Derby then the following year won the Melbourne Cup.
This year, Rodd gave the Mark Kavanagh-trained Whobegotyou, the odds-on favourite, a quiet ride out the back as Sousa set a cracking pace and had the field strung right out.
The leader had had enough around the bend and in the time it took Sousa to come back to the field Whobegotyou had ambled up four wide rounding the bend.
He quickly took over and ran away with a soft win, with Buffet fighting on bravely for second after sitting fourth in the run throughout and maiden galloper Orca, who also sat just off the lead, kicking strongly for third.
Whobegotyou posted a time just off Efficient's record in the race of 2.05.28 and Rodd, having ridden the pair, can surely smell another Derby victory.
“He took care of them pretty easily,” Rodd said. “I was a bit arrogant around the corner and he wanted to pull up on the line and had a bit in hand at the finish. The sky is the limit.”
Whobegotyou, who won the Group 1 Caulfield Guineas with ease before today's Group 2 success, will go into the Victoria Derby as an odds-on favourite on the back of the dominant display.
The last six Victoria Derby winners have come through the Vase with three of those – Efficient, Plastered and Helenus - taking the double.
Since the Vase has been conducted over 2040m Whobegotyou is poised to become only the second horse, with Helenus, to win the Caulfield Guineas, AAMI Vase, Victoria Derby treble.
Kavanagh, who has had to field questions all week as to why the three-year-old wasn't in the Cox Plate, is comfortable with the path taken and is looking forward to the Victoria Derby next week.
“He's a good horse this one,” Kavanagh said. “That was a pretty good win. I think he raced like a Derby horse.”
|
