| Bede Murray crowned himself
as the king of the two-year-olds today when he trained a feature race interstate double
with the youngsters. Not content with taking the rich
$335,000 2002 Inglis Premier at Flemington with Recruiting, Murray then watched from
Melbourne as his game filly Victory Vein scored a gutsy win in the $203,125 Sir James
Silver Slipper Stakes at Rosehill.
"It's been a great day, I really can't express how
happy I am," Murray said moments after the double was completed this afternoon.
Well known as the trainer of the AJC Derby winner Universal
Prince, Murray has since established himself as a leading trainer of juveniles.
While some stables have already started dozens of the
babies in races around the country, Murray has started just four.
"In all I have 15 two-year-olds and only four have
started. And they've all won, which has been great," Murray said.
Despite both scoring impressive wins only one is a likely
Golden Slipper starter.
"Recruiting will head back to Sydney and may even be
spelled now. I'm not really looking to the Slipper for him."
"The filly (Victory Vein) isn't nominated for the
Slipper, but I'd recommended if we won one of the feature lead up races we should pay the
late entry fee and run in the race," Murray added.
Recruiting looked in trouble of being a beaten favourite
with about 400 metres to run in the Inglis Classic before knuckling down and getting home
in a driving finish.
Murray was confident the horse would run well after his
handy last start fourth in the Talindert Stakes last Sunday, and felt the extra 100 metres
would be more to his liking.
"The extra distance today was the key and Damien
(Oliver) said after the race that he should develop into a nice horse with more time and
distance in the future," Murray added.
The Recruiting story is an interesting one.
The horse was bred by South Australian horse breeder and
businessman John Haigh, the man at the helm of the leading chocolate manufacturer Haigh's
Chocolates, which is based in Adelaide.
Being sold under the Collingrove Stud banner the son of
Celtic Swing was knocked down for just $15,000 to Murray. The yearling was the cheapest of
four picked up the Kembla Grange based trainer.
A winner at his home track on debut, the gelding then raced
for another impressive win at Moruya before authorities forced connections to change the
name before he ran in a midweek meeting in Sydney.
"After the second win we had to change his name. So
now he is known as Recruiting," Murray reflected.
The rest is now history. The gelding won the midweek race
at Canterbury before finishing just on the placegetters heels here in the Talindert Stakes
last Sunday.
PICS - Quentin
Lang. |
