The decision to return to Perth and quarantine for two weeks to ride in the Railway Stakes and miss Arcadia Queen’s win in the Mackinnon Stakes has been rewarded.
William Pike returned home to Perth prior to Arcadia Queen’s run in the G1 Mackinnon Stakes at Flemington so that he could ride in the Railway Stakes where he was booked to for the Grant and Alana Williams trained Inspirational Girl.
Pike did not regret the decision to miss the Mackinnon Stakes after his Queen won the $2m event and his decision to do so was justified on Saturday as Inspirational Girl was an emphatic winner of the Group One Railway Stakes.
Inspirational Girl was given arguably a less than perfect ride by ‘The Wizard’ but the luck arrived when needed to find clean air in time however the horse probably would have been good enough to win either way, winning with relative ease on the line.
Punters were happy to side with Pike’s judgment with Inspirational Girl heavily backed late from $3.60 into $2.40 with Sportsbet.
