Country Quack lands betting coup
Steven Burridge-trained winner comes in for late betting plunge
It certainly pays to follow the smart money.
The sharp-eyed ones who saw the incredulous drop in the odds of COUNTRY QUACK in the final minutes of Race 3 last night were laughing all the way to the bank.
Ridden by jockey Danny Beasley, the Steven Burridge-trained and Lim's & Mark's Stable-owned Country Quack jumped as the surprise favourite and got up to beat the pacemaker Grey Falcon by three-quarter lengths to pay $17 for a win.
The betting plunge became a talking point for the race presenters. Thomas Wood called it "unbelievable" in noticing the winner's price dropped from "$161 to $17".
The early favourite Volks Treasure, who was resuming from a long spell, drifted from $11 to $23 at start time.
But, after travelling a handy fourth, the CT Kuah-trained four-year-old failed to find anything in the straight under champion apprentice CC Wong and faded to finish a six-and-a-half-length seventh in the Open Maiden event over 1,200m.
BRILLIANT START
Beasley got Country Quack off to a brilliant start and saved his horse up by staying relaxed behind Grey Falcon and newcomer Golden Velocity.
At the half-way mark, the leader was half a length in front of Golden Velocity on his outside. Country Quack was two lengths behind.
Grey Falcon straightened up first. Golden Velocity went a bit wide. Beasley made his move and brought Country Quack up to challenge Grey Falcon.
The pair drew away to fight the finish. In a tense tussle to the post, Country Quack got the verdict by three parts of a length. He clocked a smart 1min 10.32sec for the 1,200m trip.
In his call, race commentator Nicholas Child said: "It's Country Quack punched out towards the line to land a few tasty bets in the process."
Country Quack has certainly shown tremendous improvement from his first start.
In that Jan 29 debut, also ridden by Beasley, Country Quack was in the rear and beat only three home in the Initiation event over 1,100m on the Polytrack. He was neglected in the betting, starting at $176 for a win.
He finished 13.5 lengths behind the runaway seven-length winner, the $12 favourite and stablemate Autumn Rush.
He jumped from barrier 12, compared to gate 2 last night.
Country Quack was the second leg of a treble for Burridge, who also saddled the winners of Races 1 and 7 with MOZART ECLIPSE ($28) and MORITZ ECLIPSE ($24) respectively. Both were ridden by A'Isisuhairi Kasim.
Juglall bounces back
Jockey Nooresh Juglall quickly bounced back from his recent race-fall injury with a win in his very first ride, SOUTHERN GLORY, at Kranji last night.
The Mauritian rider took a heavy tumble from Rusty Brown in the penultimate race on Feb 7 after his mount appeared to clip heels at the 700m mark. At first, there were fears he might be out of action for a while when he was found to have hurt his tongue and cheeks at the hospital and had to receive treatment.
But Juglall was discharged on the same night and was cleared of any serious injury. A doctor's review of his condition a few days later gave him the green light to return to race-riding yesterday, meaning he missed only last week's double meeting.
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