Four years to the day after being born, lightly-raced gelding Rolling Pin marked the occasion with a city victory at Warwick Farm and also provided his owner with a welcome 50th birthday present.
Rolling Pin, having just his eighth start, slogged it out in the heavy conditions to take out Wednesday’s ATC Foundation Membership Handicap (1300m) by 1-3/4 lengths to register his fourth career win and first city success.
Owner Matthew Sandblom, who turned 50 on Wednesday, was on track to celebrate the victory.
“I noticed when I bought the horse over in New Zealand that he had the same birthday so I couldn’t resist,” Sandblom said.
“And it looks like we’ll have a bit of fun with this horse.
“He’s a slow-maturing horse and Gwenda (trainer Markwell) has been patient with him. Hopefully it will all pay off now.”
Rolling Pin’s three previous victories came on his home track at Kembla Grange but Markwell obviously had a nice opinion of the son of Pins as she started him in the Listed Canberra Guineas at just his second start earlier this year.
“We’ll just keep taking him through his grades,” Markwell said.
“He still needs to learn a bit more about racing.”
The victory of Rolling Pin also buoyed the spirits of Moruya trainer Lynda Bundy who was preparing to saddle-up Moorings Capital for the next race.
Moorings Capital defeated Rolling Pin at Kembla on September 27 and the seven-year-old mare backed up that performance to claim the Randwick Betting Auditorium Handicap (1400m).
The long neck victory over Nayana was also a special moment for apprentice Jason Collins who notched his first city winner.
“When Rolling Pin won the previous race I was pretty confident,” Bundy said.
Sydney’s leading trainer Chris Waller prepared a winning double at the meeting which included an encouraging debut win for three-year-old Sacred Pins in the Royal Randwick On Youtube Handicap (1200m).
Sacred Pins defied a betting drift from $2 to $6 on track to score while stablemate True Tussock was well-backed but did a few things wrong and finished fourth.
“He’s definitely a Saturday-class horse, probably even better,” Waller said of the winner.
“They’re both nice horses but one did everything right today and the other did a lot of things wrong.”
AAP TURF
