Trainer and jockey quotes following the Catanach’s Jewellers BM70 Handicap won by Jimmysstar at Bendigo on Wednesday.
Race Result:
1st: Jimmysstar (Maher/Eustace, B Shinn) - $2.50 fav
2nd: The Prodigal Son (C Widdison, D Oliver) - $4.80
3rd: He's Beset (N Ryan, B McDougall) - $11
Winning Time: 1:16.51 Last 600m: NA
Margins: 1-¼ Lengths X Short-½-Head
BLAKE SHINN!
— Racing.com (@Racing) November 1, 2023
Jimmysstar looked in all sorts but found a gap on the fence & shot through to score
That's some running double for @cmaherracing! pic.twitter.com/aID6m91mgQ
Winning Trainer: Ciaron Maher & David Eustace (Maher speaking)
On the horse and coming over from NZ: "This horse had had great form in New Zealand. Ozzie (Kheir) sourced him over there and he came over in great order, he came over very fit, he had a trial and his work had been very sharp. We just basically had to keep him happy and healthy.
On the tactics: "Blake beforehand was like, 'he's been ridden back in New Zealand but he'd gone forward in his trial', and I sorta of left it up to him a bit.
"But that was a 10 out of 10 (ride), that one. Full credit, not many jocks would have done that and that was the winning move and it come off, so fair play to him."
Can the bar be raised: "I'd say definitely. He hasn't had many starts, you can see he's a winner - he's a strong, well-put-together horse and I'd be interested to see what Blake thinks of him - but I'd be surprised if he's not impressed after that performance."
Winning Jockey: Blake Shinn
On the ride: "I knew I had a lap-full of horse and we made that call to go back in. The horses in that three-wide, four-wide lane they were starting to fatigue from the 500 or 600 and were only going to get wider and I'd had a very conservative run.
"I just felt I was going to lose too much ground and the leaders were going to get away from me, so I elated to play my cards to the inside and it came my way.
"When you conserve energy like that they're always going to pick up and he picked up like he showed in New Zealand it's nice to see him come here and debut in Australia like that."
"I haven't ridden him before but from the time we jumped out of the gates he wanted to settle and if I kept pushing on I was going to be four or five wide no cover. I had to come back to near last to just give him that opportunity to relax early and then we just had to ride a race from there.
"The runs appeared today and we got the right breaks at the right time and Ozzie and the crew have found another nice horse and he's going to make his way through the grades pretty rapidly I think."
