Competing on three consecutive Saturday’s is a big ask of any horse but Punch Lane has made it look easy, backing up his dominant win at Randwick seven days ago with another emphatic effort at Hawkesbury.
The superior wet track performer started a $2.30 betting sites favourite and relished the heavy 8 conditions in Saturday’s Hawkesbury Gold Cup (1600m), making the running for Nash Rawiller and holding his advantage to the line to down Osipenko ($9) by 1-1/4 lengths with My Oberon ($14) third.
Rawiller has ridden him to his past two wins and said he showed great fortitude to keep turning up and getting the job done.
“He is tough as nails, the horse,” Rawiller said.
“It has been a great training effort, three weeks in a row, not many can do that. He has come here today and was first out of the gates and first into the bridle.
“You’d expect him to be half not wanting to be here but he was better than last time.
“He gave me a better ride going around to the gates today and probably during the race.”
Punch Lane finished fourth to Sandpaper over 1400m on April 19 before backing up at Randwick and trouncing his rivals by more than four lengths in a 1500m benchmark race on April 26.
With the promise of another wet track at Hawkesbury, trainers Anthony and Sam Freedman opted to go to the well again and Punch Lane took to the task.
Sydney stable foreman Shane Hourigan described the gelding as a no-nonsense horse with the right attitude and constitution to handle consecutive weeks of racing.
“This is his third time backing up, three weeks in a row, and he seemed to be better this time even again,” Hourigan said.
“It wasn’t an afterthought and he is probably the right horse to do it with. He just does his work, eats, pulls out in the morning and goes again.”
The Hawkesbury Cup is a Big Dance qualifier and Hourigan indicated Punch Lane is likely to be targeted towards the November feature.
