A tongue-in-cheek Dylan Gibbons admitted fellow jockey Tyler Schiller deserved some of his winning riding fee after he took out the opening race at Rosehill aboard Hawkes Racing youngster Marwooba.
The two-year-old was backing up from Canterbury on Monday when he finished sixth over 1250m with Schiller in the saddle.
However, Schiller was unable to stick with Marwooba due to commitments in Queensland, and Gibbons picked up the winning ride in Saturday’s Kia Ora Bloodlines to Headlines Handicap (1400m).
“I probably have to send half of that fee to Tyler,” Gibbons quipped.
“He told me the back-up wouldn’t worry him, and he did tell me he held his breath last start and they put some winkers on, so fair play to him. But I’ll take this one.”
By Wootton Bassett, Marwooba was a $400,000 Magic Millions yearling purchase, and gave Hawkes Racing its second Sydney Saturday metropolitan two-year-old winner in as many weeks after Why So Hard was successful at Randwick seven days ago.
The juvenile was a late entry when nominations for the race were extended, stable representative Steve Thompson saying they decided to roll the dice when he had a “soft” run at Canterbury.
“His run on Monday was like a track gallop. He went back from a bad gate and just ran home the last two (furlongs, 200m) like he would in a track gallop,” Thompson said.
“When the ‘noms’ were extended – he’s got a good constitution this horse – so we elected to put a nomination in and see how he pulled up during the week, and he’s done super.”
Given a beautiful run on the back of the speed by Gibbons, Marwooba ($7) was briefly held up for a run in the straight before surging through an opening to give chase to odds-on favourite Friendly Fire, who had darted through along the fence to take the lead.
But Marwooba finished too powerfully for the last-start winner and had 1-1/4 lengths to spare over Friendly Fire at the finish, with Iminastate ($8.50) doing best of the rest, another 2-1/2 lengths away.
