News

Big Money makes it a Ramornie double for Robert Thompson

9th Jul 2014

Sydney Morning Herald - Adam Pengilly - Wednesday, 9 July 2014

Big Money, only a four-day old foal when his mother died of a snake bite protecting her progeny, did what Lyn's Money couldn't after creating history for champion jockey Robert Thompson in Grafton's Ramornie Handicap.

The Scone-based Big Money gifted 56-year-old Thompson back-to-back Ramornie wins on Wednesday, etching his name alongside the late Cecil Kelly as the only other hoop to win the time-honoured feature in consecutive years twice.

But it is amazing the remarkably consistent Big Money, which hasn't finished outside the top two in 11 career starts, is even around to carry on his mother's legacy considering the trauma he endured as a foal.

"She died of a snake bite four days after he was born," winning trainer Rod Northam recalled of Lyn's Money, who he also trained while she raced on the track. "She won nine races and actually ran in the Ramornie, but struck a wet track and finished mid-field." Big Money was actually raised by a foster mother at owner-breeder Phil Gunter's property.

"I won a couple in Sydney on her and she's actually smaller than him," Thompson said referring to the pint-sized Big Money.

But what he lacks in size he certainly makes up for in ticker after Thompson angled off the fence turning for home and quickly rushed past his rivals to surge away with the time-honoured listed race.

Tegan Harrison, who had a Grafton homecoming to remember on Royal Scribe in the Guineas, gave Big Money something to catch aboard Rocky King. But the $2.40 favourite eased past the leader to score by three-quarters of a length.

Northam, who combined with Thompson to win the South Grafton Cup with Myamira earlier in the carnival, even hinted at Perth's group 1 Winterbottom Stakes as a long-term plan for Big Money.

"He'll have to come back in the late spring and race really well," Northam said. "If he's up to it we'd take him across. He'd be the best horse I've had, for sure, and he's untapped.

"[Robert's] helped my career so much and he's just a genuine bloke. And you know the horse is going to come back in one piece. If something goes wrong during the race you know he's not going to kill the horse. He's done some really amazing things for these horses over the years." Harrison thought she might have had enough petrol in the tank to thwart the challenge of Big Money, was left to lament the early work Rocky King ($14.70) was forced to do to find the lead.

"They were actually not going to come here after last start and I begged [trainer] Tom [Bourke] to come," she said. "His run first-up was terrific and I was confident he could beat Big Money if he got it easy enough early and that's pretty much how it panned out, but we had to work that little bit more early."

Sydney visitor Territory ($7.70) charged home from the tail to finish third. . Meanwhile, Con Karakatsanis' Klisstra will be free to start on Thursday after he was temporarily dragged into a fresh tubing drama at Grafton.

Karakatsanis, who has only recently returned from a nine-month ban after being found guilty of conspiring to tube his star sprinter Howmuchdoyouloveme before the Salinger Stakes on Victoria Derby Day in 2012, again fronted stewards at Grafton on Wednesday. Stipes caught Karakatsanis with tubing equipment at the Grafton stables of Mark Lynch on Wednesday morning, but later testing confirmed Klisstra hadn't been treated.

"Shortly after 8am our Northern Rivers-based stewards found Con Karakatsanis with tubing equipment in his stables," Racing NSW's deputy chief steward Greg Rudolph said.

"He stated the process of post-race gallop tubing was within his normal stable practices. [Results have] come back at normal levels and consistent with the evidence Klisstra wasn't treated. She's clear to race as usual and business as usual."