Plans to send Star Hawk to the police force have been tossed on the backburner after the Queanbeyan stayer's brilliant win at Canterbury on Wednesday.
This was meant to be the seven-year-old's swansong campaign before joining the police horse ranks, but trainer Mick Smith has moved swiftly to modify those plans following the gelding's career-best performance.
Star Hawk grabbed back-to-back wins while breaking the class record in the Benchmark 74 Handicap (2800m) yesterday - his first salute in town.
It was his first start over one and three-quarter miles and Smith has already circled a similar race at Canterbury on June 6.
“I've got to give him has chance to get a hat-trick,” Smith said.
“Ever since he found out he might have been going to be a police horse he's really started to put in.
“Originally we were thinking at the end of this campaign we might offer him to the police force. Right now we can still do that, but at the end of next campaign.”
Smith is enjoying a breakout year at his modest Queanbeyan stable.
He can still count the number of city winners he's prepared on one hand, but his lofty position atop his home-town trainers' premiership suggests there are more Sydney triumphs bubbling in the pipeline.
Over the past 12 months his Two Stubbies racing yard has almost produced three times as many winners as last season.
Two of those came earlier this month at Queanbeyan which leapfrogged him in to the premiership lead with just one meeting left to run.
It's a foreign concept to Smith, one which still causes his omnipresent smile to break into laughter whenever he's asked about his position on top.
“Have I even been on the chart?,” he ponders.
“I think I only had six winners in the last season. I only got one winner at the Queanbeyan circuit that year and I got it at the last meeting.
“If I was going off early and giving an early acceptance speech I'd probably be thanking Racing NSW for cutting the number of race meetings to 13 because I can be competitive with 13 meetings.
“I've only got about eight or nine horses at any point in time to draw on, whereas when there's 20 race meetings I can't have a runner in all of them.
“I really have learned a lot in the last bit. You learn you can do this, or someone recommends some additional feed additive that makes the world of difference.
“A whole lot of little things have made the difference. All the horses look healthy and they're all going really well, they're all racing right to their best at the moment.
“It's just luck. Hard work and luck that the right things have happened this year.”
