They don’t come much gamer than Romakash.
The six-year-old forty-four start veteran, a $5 chance, made it back-to-back wins when he took out the Benchmark 90 Handicap over 2406m at Eagle Farm after a stride for stride battle with Humbolt Current ($2.90) over the entire length of the home straight.
It was a question of who was going to blink first, and it was only inside the final 150m that Michael Rodd pushed Romakash’s head in front.
Even then, Humbolt Current wouldn’t go away, but, ultimately, the Chris Waller trained runner failed to peg back the advantage that Romakash had established and Romakash held Humbolt Current to the line to win by a narrow margin.
This win gave Michael Rodd the first two winners on the card.
Romakash, who has been handled superbly by trainer Matt Kropp, improved his record to eleven wins at an impressive strike rate of twenty-five percent.
“It’s so hard to get a bit of racing into them the way the program is for these Open distance stayers … and they don’t have 1600m trials either,” said Kropp. “So, you have got to do some pretty ugly things sometimes that is not suitable to them.”
Whatever Kropp is doing it is working … and there might be more to look forward to.
“His pedigree goes back to a lot of European stayers so there is a good chance he can get two miles. We’ll try to get there … and to the Queensland Cup hopefully.”
