In a blanket finish which saw only 0.40 lengths cover the first four runners across the line, the Les Gordy-trained Demon Award … the $8 third favourite … prevailed to claim the $100,000 Rockhampton Newmarket from the $101 outsider Red Hot Lizzie, the $2.45 favourite Ouroboros and the $19 chance Odegaard who finished second, third and fourth respectively.
The Rockhampton Newmarket day kicked off the Northern Queensland Racing Carnival ahead of the Rockhampton Cup day on Saturday. It will then move on to Mackay, Townsville and Cairns with the Carnival running all the way through to the Cairns Cup day on August 29.
In the Rockhampton Newmarket, the favourite, the Matthew Hoysted-trained Ouroboros could not have been more game in defeat, but a defeat it was as he lost his lead with only 50m to run … and was swamped late with jockey Brandon Lerena urging Demon Award to the front at exactly the right time to secure the feature race victory.
Ouroboros was not the best away from the worst of the draw (barrier 14 of 14) but he was immediately pressed forward by Boris Thornton, chasing hard around the entire field early, looking for the lead.
It took him all of 300m to get there, while Demon Award had a much easier track into the race, eventually settling into fourth, then third spot in the first half of the race, travelling well, three lengths behind Ouroboros who was now in a clear lead, but not being allowed any real let-up up front.
He was stringing the field out though.
Coming to the home turn … with that 600m straight still to navigate … Ouroboros straightened with Bold Comic ($7.50) racing close to his outside and Demon Award hovering one horse wider just in behind that.
Thornton kept Ouroboros’s mind on the job in the home straight and the favourite maintained a level of competitive gallop good enough to shake off Bold Comic and ensure that Demon Award would have to dig deep to close the gap, a test, the severity of which was highlighted by the fact that while Demon Award was full of fight, it still took him between the 400m and 80m marks to get in front of Ouroboros and, even then, the favourite would just not go away.
Demon Award had won that two-way battle with 50m left to run, but now both Red Hot Lizzie and Odegaard were arriving like runaway trains, rocketing to the line after coming from well off the speed.
That is where Lerena’s hard riding turned into fine timing as Demon Award hit the line just in time to keep the faster-finishing duo back in the minor placings by a fast-diminishing margin with Ouroboros also still right there, seemingly not prepared to concede defeat until the race was over.
It was a tremendous finish to the main feature on the opening day of the Northern Queensland Racing Carnival.
With any luck, it will be a taste of things to come.
The connections of Demon Award are now in line for the Great Northern Crowns Bonus which offers $500,000 to any horse that can take out all four of the Northern Carnival’s feature sprints – the Rockhampton Newmarket, the Mackay Newmarket, the Cleveland Bay Handicap, and the Cairns Newmarket.
A tough ask, not only competition-wise, but to keep a runner firing at maximum output for that long … but after the Rockhampton Newmarket, the field in the running for that bonus has now been reduced to one.