Peter Moody might not have his training base in the Sunshine State, but it will take a brave man to suggest he is not a true blue Queenslander … and, therefore, his appetite to win a second Stradbroke Handicap, Queensland’s signature race, is undiminished.
Moody had a famous day out back on June 9, 2012, when he and jockey Luke Nolen won that year’s edition of the Group 1 Stradbroke Handicap with Mid Summer Music … keeping Buffering and Hugh Bowman back in second place.
That was the pinnacle moment of the day but, quite incredibly, it was the middle leg of a race-to-race training treble on the day which saw Moody also take out the Group 1 Queensland Derby with Brambles (Brad Rawiller) and the Group 2 Brisbane Cup with Lights Of Heaven (Luke Nolen). An obviously quite magnificent achievement.
At that time Moody’s superstar Black Caviar was already twenty-one wins into what would ultimately turn out to be the perfect career of twenty-five wins from twenty-five starts … and she was about to put a Royal Ascot win in the Diamond Jubilee on the scoreboard which she did two weeks after Moody’s big Stradbroke Day out.
Good times.
Fast forward fourteen years and Moody, now training in partnership with Katherine Coleman, is once again in Stradbroke contention with the Group 1 Goodwood winner Desert Lightning.
The Pride Of Dubai gelding, who also won a Group 1 in New Zealand when still with trainers Peter And Dawn Williams (the TAB Classic at Trentham), comes into the Stradbroke off the back of a run in the Group 1 Kingsford Smith Cup … his follow-up run to his Goodwood win … where he finished unplaced, but only 1.78 lengths back in a bunched finish behind the winner Headley Grange, who is the current Stradbroke favourite.
The old firm of Moody and Luke Nolen is still very much in play with Nolen taking the Stradbroke ride on Desert Lightning, a horse he has partnered in each of the six-year-old’s last seven starts.
Drawn ideally in barrier five with some positive soft going form to recommend him (not heavy), Desert Lightning remains out of the main fancies loop, currently coming in at odds of $34.
The Moody/Coleman training partnership also have Pounding in the Group 2 Q22, and two runners Paradise City and She’s Got Pazzazz in the Group 2 Dane Ripper Stakes … with Nolen riding Pounding and Paradise City … and Mark Zahra going aboard She’s Got Pazzazz.
She’s Got Pizzazz is currently a joint favourite at $6.50 with online bookies. Paradise City is $46 and Pounding is $61.
In race-day order that puts the Moody/Coleman runners at $6.50 and $46, $34 and $61 for the three races they are contesting.
Now that would be a treble that would have the bookmakers beaming with delight.
In reality though, while the stable might be able to snare one of those results if things go their way … the treble … well, probably not this time.
