Robert Smerdon was glad he decided not to scratch Beyond Pardon due to the heavy conditions when the gelding bounced back to form with a narrow win at Caulfield.
The trainer was mystified by Beyond Pardon’s 14th to Uxorious, beaten 19 lengths, in the Listed Wangoom Handicap at Warrnambool on a heavy track at his previous outing on May 4.
“I came here scratching my head after Warrnambool. We thought he’d run terrific in the Wangoom and he was the first horse beaten,” Smerdon said.
“I wasn’t quite sure whether it was the ground.
“I was tossing up this morning whether to scratch him because it was so wet.
“But the race being out the back gate, I decided to let him run to get a guide on him as a prospect for the winter going forward.
“Whoever backed him didn’t ring me. They wouldn’t have got a push, I wasn’t even going to run him.”
However, with the addition of a barrier blanket for the first time and pacifiers again, Beyond Pardon was a different horse in Saturday’s Heather Herron Handicap (1100m), which was the second of seven heats of the All Victorian Sprint Series.
Ridden by stable apprentice Jason Maskiell, the Invincible Spirit four-year-old, backed from $7.50 to $5, jumped out well to sit outside equal favourite Balavan.
The two cleared out on the home turn and after a good tussle, Beyond Pardon prevailed by a half head.
The other equal favourite, the Peter Moody-trained Elumino, making a comeback to racing after failing to get in foal last spring, finished 2-1/4 lengths away third.
“We tried the pacifiers on him last preparation when we stretched him out to 1400 metres, 1600 metres trying to get him to relax a bit,” Smerdon said.
“But just sprinting him this time in we took them off. I don’t know what part they played but we decided to put them back on.
“And he’d been getting a bit quirky at the barrier so we put the barrier blanket on him and jumped him out here on Tuesday just to try something different to get him to jump a little bit better.”
Smerdon said Beyond Pardon, who has won four races and placed in 11 others from 21 starts, would tackle similar races over the winter.
He nominated the Golden Topaz (1200m) at Swan Hill on June 10 as a target.
That sprint is heat four of the All Victorian Sprint Series, the $150,000 final over 1200m, won by Elumino last year, is run at Flemington on July 9.
AAP TURF
