Jockey Danny Beasley has always had a bit of time for Chalaza from Day 1 and it showed in his effusive post-race appraisal after they recombined for a second win on Friday night.
The Road To Rock four-year-old opened his account in style in an Open Maiden race over 1400m with the Australian rider up two weeks ago.
But as much as Chalaza underlined his stacks of potential from that win, Beasley, who has worked with the gelding including at all his barrier trials, fed back to trainer Steven Burridge there was still some improvement to come out of him.
The two men put their heads together and decided a drop back to 1200m might help the gelding settle in his stride better. They picked Friday’s $60,000 Class 4 Division 2 race over 1200m to test out their theory and the findings could not have been a more resounding success.
As Mastermind (Azhar Ismail) speared over to dash to the front halfway through the backstraight to turn it right on, Beasley was chuckling to himself they were going helter-skelter. Parked in midfield on the fence, the $12 favourite bided his time until the field straightened up for the judge.
Mastermind crumbled as expected, longshots Miss Waimataitai (Anandan Subramaniam) and Miss Blanchett (Barend Vorster) fleetingly had one foot on the till, but it was Chalaza who was putting on wings on every foot as he scooted through acres of galloping room at the 300m to put paid to his rivals.
Chalaza went on to score by one length from Elise (Benny Woodworth) with Miss Blanchett third another length away. The winning time was 1min 9.8secs for the 1200m on the Long Course.
“Credit to Steve for bringing him back to 1200m. We thought the faster pace would help him as he’s got a very nice turn of foot,” said Beasley.
“It will also teach him to settle better as a racehorse as he’s got a lot of ability. He did a few things wrong the other day even though he won.
“Tonight, we dropped him back and he came motoring home for a very nice win. He’s got a very nice future here.”
Burridge was also delighted that the tweaking in strategy has come to fruition for the Lim’s & Mark’s Stable-owned gelding.
“He’s still very green and we brought him back to 1200m and decided to ride him a little quiet this time,” said the Australian handler.
“Mastermind went real quick and I knew he would eventually come back to us. My horse sprinted real good in the end.
“He’s done everything right and he will get 1400m to 1600m once he becomes more mature. He will become a nice horse later on.”
With that second win and one second recorded on debut, Chalaza has already brought up a nice bundle of around $65,000 for his connections.
