Deimos showed another facet of his enormous talent after he overcame terribly wet conditions not made to suit a backmarker like him to still emerge victorious in a last race run under battering rain on Friday night.
Heading into the $60,000 Open Benchmark 67 race over 1200m, leading jockey Vlad Duric knew he was sitting atop the best horse in the 12-horse field, but when the heavens opened, he was not so sure anymore.
With rain pelting and the Polytrack kickback flying all around, the Australian jockey had no other choice but to try and keep the Showcasing four-year-old out of trouble at the back, which was in keeping with his his normal racing pattern, anyway. Deimos looked to be travelling okay, a little worse than midfield, and most important, not bogged down in a tight pocket among horses.
Upfront, surprise leader Secret Mission (Erasmus Aslam), who jumped from the widest gate, was showing no signs of letting-up, seemingly growing another leg in the rain.
But Duric had in the meantime launched Deimos, who in the blink of an eye, emerged from the pack to mow down the leader at the 300m mark.
At the 100m, the $12 favourite’s acceleration was so relentless that it was clear that Secret Mission would be hard-pushed to stave him off. Deimos went on to hit the line with three parts of a length to spare from a very gallant Secret Mission with Himalaya Dragon (Alan Munro) third another length away.
The winning time was 1min 12.33secs for the 1200m on the Polytrack.
Duric, who was warming the saddle for the suspended Michael Rodd, was incidentally maintaining a 100% perfect record with the Olympian Stable-owned gelding. The Australian jockey was right on the money at his only one previous association with Deimos back in January.
“He’s not a bad horse at all. In these horrendous conditions, for a horse that gets back like him, it looked tricky,” he said.
“But he’s such a determined little bugger. He just kept taking the runs and I was lucky we found plenty of room in the straight.
“Once he switched on that electrifying turn of foot of his, he was always going to win. Thanks to Cliffy for the ride as I’m only on because Michael is suspended and Amirul (Ismadi, his last-start winning partner left for Tasmania for three months) is away.”
Brown, this year’s Dester Singapore Gold Cup-winning trainer with Gilt Complex last Sunday, said Deimos has earned a well-deserved break after that gutsy win.
“He’s got such a will to win. He was chasing down that horse really hard even though the conditions out there were so bad,” said the Australian trainer.
“He will have a break now and we’ll bring him back next year.”
Considered among the leading three-year-olds earlier in the year, Deimos has now amassed in excess of $185,000 in prizemoney with that latest success.
