News

Arrowfield Sprint 2015: Frustrations come to an end for Chris Waller as “difficult” Delectation delivers

13th Apr 2015

The Daily Telegraph - Ray Thomas - Saturday, 11 April 2015

TRAINER Chris Waller didn’t pull any punches when he described Delectation as a “frustrating horse”.

But Waller also knows Delectation is loaded with latent sprinting ability and the three-year-old showed in his narrow win in the Group 2 $500,000 Arrowfield Sprint (1200m).

“Delectation is a difficult horse but things haven’t really gone his way,’’ Waller said.

“But full credit to Hugh Bowman, he is an accomplished horse man and he made it look easy today. Delectation is a very tough horse to ride but Hugh has done a fantastic job with him.

“The pacifiers help the horse settled and he was able to finish the race off well. It was a good win today.’’

Delectation ($8.50) was ridden with cover most of the race by Bowman before emerging from behind the leaders halfway down the straight, swooping to the front and holding off the late charge of Bring Me the Maid ($8) to win by a nose with Rekindled Power ($20) running an eye-catcher for third, three-quarters of a length further back.

The disappointment of the race was heavily backed favourite Kuro ($2.45), who ran only eighth.

Kuro began well and was in a line of four in the early lead before Blake Shinn decided to ease back in the field looking to get in closer to the fence.

After drifting back to near the rear of the field, Kuro was given galloping room from the top of the straight but struggled to make any ground.

“He was disappointing,’’ Shinn said.

“We were going to be very wide early so I brought him back to finish off. We got on the back of the winner to get a nice trail into it but he was beaten at the 400m.

“He has handled these conditions before so I don’t know — he certainly didn’t bring his A-game."