Ex Luca Cumani stayer Manighar turned on the style for new trainer Peter Moody at Caulfield this afternoon, saluting in the Carlyon Cup and announcing his firm credentials as a BMW contender over the autumn.
Photo by Racing and Sports
The classy six-year-old wasted no time showing Moody he'd seamlessly settled into Australian life, zipping around the mile and pulling clear in the straight to notch his first win in more than two years. Shadowfax ran second with Zeewap powering on well into third.
Manighar hadn't raced since a productive spring where he ran fourth in the Caulfield Cup before collecting an impressive fifth placing in the Melbourne Cup. He also ran second to American in the Zipping Classic.
Since then the versatile grey galloper has changed stable, and part-owner Terry Henderson wasn't surprised to see the move paying instant dividends.
“Luca always said he thought the horse would respond to the Australian way of training,” Henderson said.
“He's a world-class trainer for a very good reason and it's fantastic when you can get a guy like him and a guy like Pete working together to get this horse where he is.”
Moody wasn't surprised by Manighar's first-up effort but admitted the horse had come a long way over the last month.
“We came here with an open mind, he's been going nicely at home,” Moody said.
“Four or five weeks ago he was a 4000m hurdler with all due respect. As we shortened and sharpened his work up the last couple of weeks he's started to show a turn of foot.
“I suggested to the boys that it's not going to be silly to run him in a mile-type race.
“If he ran to his work he was going to run okay but you want to see them take it before you put your head on the block, particularly a horse you don't know a lot about.”
He said the horse's next major assignment would be the Group 1 Australian Cup (2000m), but was unsure whether he'd run again to prepare.
“He'll go to the Australia Cup and the BMW, it'll just depend whether he runs between today and the cup or what path we go but they're his two targets,” Moody said.
The win was a timely distraction for the Melbourne trainer, whose mighty mare Black Caviar collected an 18th straight win later in the afternoon.
Prior to Black Caviar's dominant win, well-backed Peter Snowden three-year-old [nPied A Terre[/n] claimed the Autumn Stakes (1400m).
Jockey Mark Zahra took full advantage of the slow tempo, pulling clear in the final furlong and finishing well ahead of Proliferate who pinched second place from Adamantium.
“They had him fresh for the 1400 and he really pinged there and travelled easy,” Zahra said.
“When he was able to find that couple of lengths at the top of the straight he was always going to be tough to beat.”
Snowden was unsure yet whether he would keep the horse in Melbourne for his next run or take him back to Sydney for the autumn carnival.
