Craig Carmody celebrated some of his biggest moments as a jockey at Randwick and in his second career incarnation as a trainer, he has put those skills to good use to help promising sprinter Sir Les notch an important victory at headquarters.
Best known as the regular rider of multiple Group 1 winner Intergaze – who he partnered to famously spoil Octagonal’s farewell in the 1997 Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Randwick – Carmody still rides his own work and Sir Les has been his latest project.
After winning his first two starts at the provincials, the three-year-old was his own worst enemy when over-racing and going down as favourite at Rosehill in May, forcing Carmody back to the drawing board.
Opting to back off the horse and concentrate on teaching him to harness his speed, the fruits of the trainer’s labour were borne out on Saturday with Sir Les ($4.40) posting an emphatic 3-1/4 length win over Benevac ($2.40 favourite) in the Sydney Roosters Partners Handicap (1100m).
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“He’s a bit aggressive, so I’ve spent a lot of time on his slower work,” Carmody said.
“When he’d try to get ahead of me, I’d get him back to virtually a trot and slow canter, and eventually he would give to me.
“Repetition, day after day, got it through his head that you don’t have to run through the bridle.”
After two decades in the saddle, Carmody was granted a trainers’ licence in 2005 and has had stakes race success with Single and Everage.
The latter is the dam of Sir Les and also the inspiration for his name, with both Sir Les Patterson and Dame Edna Everage characters created by famous comedian Barry Humphries.
Carmody said it was satisfying to see Sir Les bounce back, drawing him to make tongue-in-cheek comparisons with Intergaze.
“It was great to see. Like Intergaze,” he quipped.
“I’m being very kind to Sir Les. He is nothing like Intergaze yet. But he gives me a great turn of foot, so that’s something to work on.”
Sir Les will be spelled with a view to the summer and early autumn sprints.
