Apprentice Shaun Guymer made the most of his first opportunity for the powerful Darley team with a well-judged ride to win on Haut Normandie at Randwick on Saturday.
Guymer, 19, was happy to allow Haut Normandie to assume the frontrunning role after expected leader Startreusse was slowly away and raced at the tail of the field.
Haut Normandie ($3) controlled the race from the front and with the advantage of Guymer’s three-kilogram claim the colt kicked strongly in the straight to defeat Subarc ($2.60 fav) by 2-1/4 lengths with a long neck to Shadow Line ($8) in third place.
“Whether or not today went the way it did, it was always going to be great to ride for Mr (Peter) Snowden,” Guymer said.
“And for the horse to run like he did made it even better. It was a tremendous effort from the horse and it’s great that it turned out well.”
The victory was Guymer’s fifth success in the metropolitan area and he hopes the victory on the Snowden-trained runner leads to more opportunities from Sydney stables.
“Hopefully this gives me a nice kick along,” he said after the Bacardi Handicap (1600m).
Jockey Christian Reith replaced the injured Jim Cassidy on Startreusse ($5) and told stewards his intentions were to lead but the colt didn’t want to go early.
He finished at the tail of the field.
“The intentions were to lead but the horse didn’t want to go early,” Reith said.
“I saw no point in digging the horse up then and getting him overracing, so I just tried to get him to relax as good as I could to give him a chance to get the mile and get home.”
Stable representative Peter Muscutt said Startreusse would be heading for a spell and consideration would be given to having the colt gelded.
AAP TURF
