Theirs is a partnership that has produced winner after winner but trainer Hideyuki Takaoka still gets nervous watching jockey Alan Munro ride one of his horses.
Just last Friday night, Takaoka's gelding Green Jacket looked a forlorn hope at the 300m, until Munro left it at the eleventh hour to push his mount through a gap and snatch victory by a slender margin.
And the Japanese handler’s heart was in his mouth after the disastrous start his three-year-old Thumping made in the $55,000 Class 4 Div 2 race over 1400m on Sunday.
But once again Munro’s impeccable timing proved as astute as ever as he produced a stirring last-to-first finish with Thumping to score a 1 ¾ lengths victory over Bogart (Manoel Nunes) in a winning time of 1 min 23.26secs.
“Alan always gives me a scare at the start of the race,” said Takaoka. “I’m not sure what happened but I was worried after they jumped.”
He had plenty of reasons to be distressed as Thumping got off to the worst possible start and was the slowest of the 10 runners out of the blocks. She was last and appeared to struggle as the race wore on.
However, the US-bred filly, upon Munro’s urgings, found an extra gear after rounding the bend and stole a march on the rest of the field down the straight for an unlikely victory.
It was the second triumph in just four starts for the lightly-raced Suzuka Racing Stable-owned galloper.
“It’s only her fourth start and she’s still very green in terms of racing and isn’t very comfortable at the gates,” said Takaoka, who saddled three winners on Sunday, his second treble in two weeks. “But she finished very strong and it was a nice run in the end.
“She’s still a young horse but with more racing, I’m sure she’ll become a better horse.”
Sharing his opinion was his long-time collaborator Munro – the pair combined for two wins on Sunday to boost their tally to 26 wins together for this campaign – who felt there was more to come from Thumping.
“She’s not good at the gates and jumps at them a lot,” said the former Epsom Derby-winning jockey. “It’s an unfortunate characteristic but I think she’ll grow out of it.”
