Champion jumps jockey Steven Pateman has finally added the one race that was missing from his glittering CV.
Pateman partnered with his close friend Ciaron Maher to win aboard Stern Idol in the Australian Steeplechase (3900m) at Sandown on Sunday.
Lumping 73kg and conceding his rivals a minimum of 7kg, Stern Idol, the $1.85 favourite, scored a three-quarter length win from Leaderboard ($9.50) with Not Usual Dream ($51) a further five lengths away third.
Stern Idol lead for the last 3000m of Sunday’s race and Pateman admitted it was pretty lonely after the pair had jumped the last fence with around 300m to run.
“It was pretty lonely after the last with the 73 kilos, knowing the second horse had seven kilos less,” Pateman said.
“I was thinking about how I had never won this race, I can tell you.
“The Australian Hurdle and the Australian Steeplechase, they are absolutely time-honoured events, so it’s super special.”
Pateman acknowledge the training performance of Maher and his team to have Stern Idol in peak condition for Sunday’s race.
After a flat run at Sandown in March, Stern Idol had two hurdle starts in which he carried less weight than he was asked to carry on Sunday.
“He could have run in steeplechases earlier in the year, but he would have carried big weights, and he might have won one, but it’s too hard all the time,” Pateman said.
“He ran him in races where he was better weighted and today was a target.
“The way he settled, he knew where he was and the trip he had to run out. He was chilled and its testament to the horse and the training.
“He went his own rhythm. He travelled sweetly and wasn’t getting keen at all and I wasn’t leading from the get-go.
“I was happy for that to unfold. I wasn’t keen to lead all the way with 73 kilos, which could have been his undoing.
“He absolutely winged the second-last. If you could get some footage of where he took off from and where he landed, it would have been a couple of car lengths.”
Sunday’s victory was a modern-day weight carrying record and equalled the weight he carried to win the Brierly Steeplechase (3400m) at Warrnambool last year.
There was a sad postscript with Treasured Crown being euthanised after an incident at the second-last obstacle. Jockey William McCarthy was uninjured.
