Warwick Farm-based trainer Gary Portelli has pulled the right rein with Lord Zoulander ($10) in the Randwick Midway, opting for a quick back-up after disappointing in last week’s edition.
Only seven days ago the Zoustar progeny was beaten almost ten lengths in the newly created race, but Portelli knew he was a better horse than that. The gelding franked his judgement beating Just Field ($4.80) by a length and three quarters with Henschel ($7) a further length and a quarter back in third.
The five-year-old has always shown ability but didn’t get the breaks last weekend.
“He’s been threatening, but he was disappointing last week on what was a much heavier track,” Portelli said.
“He got trapped wide and he’s a horse that when he knows he can’t win he often puts the brakes on.
“I thought when he won at Hawkesbury he’d continue but then last week he let us down terribly.
“We put it down to the track and backed it up today with a beautiful barrier. Barriers win races and he had a lovely run.”
Lord Zoulander took advantage of gate three and was given the run of the race by in-form hoop Brenton Avdulla, who was full of praise for Portelli’s training performance.
“Good training effort, obviously it was a hard week last week,” Avdulla said.
“Gaz has obviously had the saddle off him because he was quite fresh for the week and he was quite fresh going to the gates, but he did a good job.
“The low draw helped, he got the right run off a slow speed and was able to dash through.”
Earlier this year Racing NSW announced the creation of a new $100,000 Midway Race to be to be added to metropolitan Saturday race meetings and is an initiative exclusively for small to mid-sized NSW metropolitan and provincial stables.
