Peter Robl has wasted no time in making his presence felt in Queensland
Trainer Peter Robl has wasted no time in making his presence felt in Queensland after relocating to the Sunshine state late last month.
So far, Robl has sent out three runners from his new Gold Coast base, claiming two wins and a close-up runner-up finish to kick-start this new phase of his training career in eye-catching fashion.
“My first two runners … one (Spicy Legend) just got beaten at Doomben last Saturday and the second one (Do Well Legend) won at the Sunshine Coast on Sunday,” said Robl.
“Both are owned by Bo Ho, who is a very influential owner in Australia, so that was a good result for him and a good result for me to get up and running early. People like to see you training winners.
“Do Well Legend came to me from Chris Waller and let’s face it, Peter Robl wasn’t going to improve one off Chris, so I had to do a couple of things out of left field with the horse just to try and stimulate him mentally up here, and it worked … and hopefully it can keep working.”
Ryan Wiggins rode both Spicy Legend and Do Well legend and, at this stage, he will be one of the go-to riders for Robl moving forward.
“I will be using Ryan quite a bit,” confirmed Robl, “although he is heavy so anything over the 55kg he won’t be able to ride, but we go back to the Canberra days, so while he is riding well and riding winners, I’ll keep putting him on.
And then yesterday the Robl stable claimed another win with the smart three-year-old colt Richon who won first-up at Doomben with Samantah Collett in the saddle.
“He is a beautiful colt … nice and relaxed,” offered Robl. “I did have him in on Saturday, but he drew very awkward, so we elected to come here with no weight on his back. Honestly, before the race I thought he would win and I would have been disappointed if he didn’t win.
“We have a couple of targets we can aim at with him over the carnival and we are on out way to doing that.
“I brought sixteen horses with me. I’ve got twenty-eight boxes, so I’m always looking for more, explained Robl.
“Look, it’s a good number to start off with and probably half of the team is ready to go. A few of my good staff came up from Sydney which made the transition very simple.
“I am in John Morrisey’s old stables. They are beautiful stables, so it is quite easy to settle into good stables. Having said that, it is still going to take a couple of months until we totally get our feet on the ground, but we’ve started off nice.
“For me personally, settling in has been pretty smoothy. I’ve come up here and rode a lot in the past and I’ve brought horses up here when I was training in Sydney … so, it is not like it is unfamiliar territory to me.
“We’ve got into it nicely … and, yeah, I am enjoying it.”
