Winning Treble Has Williams Stoked Up For Final Day Of Cup Week

The Age

Friday November 7, 2008

PATRICK BARTLEY

CRAIG Williams went into yesterday's Oaks meeting with an appalling recent strike-rate but left Flemington as one of the jockeys of the carnival with a winning treble.

Until yesterday, Williams had gone 54 rides for just two winners, but he turned that statistic around by winning the last three races - on Stokehouse in the Myer Stakes at $8, Arinos, who won the Service Stream Sprint at $11, and Rockpecker, who won the Sunrise Cup at $4.60.

Williams, chief rider for trainer David Hayes, was successful on only one of the stable's gallopers - Stokehouse.

"I'm really pleased that he's broken through. He's been doing absolutely nothing wrong and I think he's ridden five seconds in the past month but that will get him going," Hayes said of Williams after Stokehouse's win.

And Hayes also fought back with a winning double yesterday, lifting the stable's spirits after a moderate first two days of the Cup carnival.

Hayes also prepared Acosta ($11) for victory in the TCL Plate.

"Acosta is a strange horse. He's been working at home like a group winner but it hasn't been translating into his racing form, but now it has. I'm sure there is a bright future for him," Hayes said.

"And as far as Stokehouse is concerned, he is really a work in progress. But I'm tempted now to run him in the Sandown Guineas in a fortnight's time."

Acosta was ridden by former Melbourne jockey Brett Prebble, who showed why he is a champion jockey in Hong Kong with his superb rails ride on the three-year-old.

Allan Scorse, who took out a trainer's licence a decade ago, tasted success with his first ever runner at Flemington when Looking Fur Lang won the Pentax Plate for greys yesterday.

The former top NSW jockey said he had set Looking Fur Lang for yesterday's race more than two months ago.

"I was looking in the calendar and was desperate to get him to a 1400 metres race and I saw the greys event and thought, 'that's for me'," Scorse said.

"He's basically a sprinter but I was just tempted to run him in a 1400 metres race and let him roll along in front and see how he goes."

Looking Fur Lang, who started at $6.50 after being backed from $7, helped give yesterday's meeting a strong Newcastle flavour, with the Kris Lees-trained Samantha Miss giving the city a winning double when she strode away with the Oaks.

Smart filly Palacio de Cristal ($9.50) had continued the Sydney domination of racing at the Flemington carnival when she took out the Moet & Chandon and trainer Grahame Begg is convinced better races are in store for the filly.

"She had a little bit of a setback so we started her in this race," he said, adding that he believed the AJC Oaks in the autumn was not beyond the filly after her win over 1700 metres yesterday.

The interstate domination was further underlined when high-class Adelaide sprinter Arinos took out the Service Stream Sprint. The gelding has now notched two wins in succession at Flemington.

The big failure of the race was the unplaced Lucky Secret ($5favourite).

"He just drew the wrong side - purely and simply we were on the wrong part of the track," said jockey Danny Brereton.

While Lucky Secret was the first over the line on the grandstand side, he finished in 10th position.

© 2008 The Age

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