It didn’t take long for Haripour to make an impact on the Melbourne staff of Chris Waller.
The former Darren Weir-trained galloper has been described by Waller’s Melbourne assistant Jo Taylor as one of the happiest horses in the stable after his win in the Listed Golden Mile at Bendigo on Saturday.
The gelding was having his second start for Waller after the Irish-bred galloper made a steady rise through the ranks for Weir last year.
Providing jockey Michael Dee the second leg of a double, Haripour ($19) scored by 1-1/2 lengths from stablemate Mantastic ($12) with Red Alto ($81) a nose away third.
“He’s a bit of a legend around the stable,” Taylor said.
“He’s one of the first horses you’ll see when you walk in and he’s always got a friendly face so the staff love being around him.
“He’s easy going and does everything right.”
A winner of the Ansett Classic (2400m) at Mornington last September, Taylor said Waller would study the program to look for a suitable race to raise the bar with the gelding.
“We’ve always thought he’s a classy individual and last start over the 1400 metres we were very pleased with that effort,” Taylor said.
“He took the necessary improvement today but we thought the mile was short of his optimum distance, but he certainly showed he has the class and that came out today.”
Dee earlier had won the VOBIS Gold Rush aboard Prince Of Sussex.
He said the race couldn’t have unfolded any better after finding a nice position.
“He travelled beautifully for me throughout and it was a matter of getting to the outside of horses and working into it when I wanted to,” Dee said.
“He kept on building all the way up the straight and it was a very good effort today.”
