As is the case, more often than not, trainer Peter Snowden landed another Queensland Winter Carnival win to his long list of achievements when The Machine Gun shot down his opposition in the Listed Tattersall’s Stakes at Eagle Farm.
Patience is not only a virtue in racing, it is an essential attribute for any trainer to have in his armoury and Snowden, with all of his years of experience, has been patience personified with this chestnut colt, sending the son of Stay Inside to no less than five official trials before giving him the green light for race action where Snowden and the connections of The Machine Gun enjoyed an instant reward for their measured approach as The Machine Gun ($3.90) won on debut, downing the race favourite Klocke ($2.05) by 0.18 lengths in a Maiden over 1200m at Canterbury.
The Machine Gun made it two wins from two starts in the Tattersall’s Stakes when keeping his perfect record intact at the hard-to-fathom odds of $21 according to leading Aussie betting sites.
Three runners drove out The Machine Gun’s market price, most notably the Godolphin-owned, Michael Freedman-trained Tannin, who was the $2.80 betting sites favourite. Like The Machine Gun, he had won on debut (at Gosford over 1200m in a Maiden) in his only start prior to this Eagle Farm engagement.
The other two runners that the betting suggested would be in play were the Peter Robl-trained Hard To Exceed ($4.60) and the self-same Klocke ($7), who The Machine Gun had beaten in their last clash.
The betting got it wrong.
Tim Clark rode the race to perfection, positioning The Machine Gun in third place behind the $101 bolter Wooten You Know and Hard To Exceed in the first half of the race. Klocke was saving ground on the rail just in behind that while Tannin raced in the second half of the field, some five lengths off the lead.
Into the home straight was where the race turned into a serious contest.
As Wooten You Know weakened, Hard To Exceed and The Machine Gun surged to the front where they were quickly joined by Klocke … the three were in a line abreast with 250m left to run.
Hard To Exceed then briefly held the advantage … before Klocke took that away from him … before Clark got The Machine Gun to rally late and join Klocke in a stride-for-stride battle to the line where he got the Snowden-trained runner up to win by a narrow 0.04-length margin from a very game Klocke.
The effort of Hard To Exceed was enough to earn him third place.
The favourite Tannin never fired a shot and was soundly beaten out of the placings. When asked to comment on Tannin’s run by stewards, jockey Tommy Berry reported that Tannin failed to respond when placed under pressure and in his opinion may not have appreciated today’s track conditions.
