Once a promising two-year-old, Jigsaw lost his way a bit a bit towards the end of his three-year-old campaign but has come back in career best form, winning his first race at stakes level.
The writing was on the wall first up at Cranbourne as he showed plenty of gate speed to lead, running a big new peak figure of 108 with Timeform, the first time he’d cracked triple figures in over 14 months, and he backed it up at Caulfield.
Able to sit outside the leader with a strong northerly wind posing an issue for those without cover, jockey Daniel Moor who replaced Ethan Brown from Cranbourne, took over in the straight and found enough late to deny the fast-finishing Rose Quartz.
Part owner Marcus Price lauded the training effort of Cindy Alderson who wasn’t present on track.
“I think she (Cindy) was genuinely excited, she’d upped the stakes and we thought ‘it’s another step today with some good opposition’ so we’re delighted, today was the testing day, we can’t be any happier.” Price said.
The race wasn’t without its fair share of drama, with Rainbiel rearing as the gates opened and losing her rider Craig Newitt. Both horse and jockey came through the incident unscathed.
Away from the early drama, Daniel Moor was happy to sit off the leader on the easing $4.20 favourite and was impressed with how Jigsaw relaxed in the run.
“On paper there looked to be a hell of a lot of speed and not many horses can lead Yulong Command so we pretty much resigned ourselves that we wouldn’t lead him today. My bloke’s not aggressive at all, he’s fast but not aggressive and we built speed gradually,” Moor said.
The disappointment of the race was Bruckner, sent around at $4.60 second favourite and finishing over 10 lengths away in last, having been last seen splitting Home Affairs and Artorius in the Group 1 Coolmore Stud Stakes (1200m).
