Racing: Grey's just a dude says trainer

FLASHBACK: Jockey Opie Bosson,trainer Allan Sharrock and HB Racing general manager Jason Fleming celebrate after Shez Sinsational's Spring Classic victory in 2012. PHOTO/FILE

It's a journalistic sin to misspell someone's name but it hardly matters to Allan Sharrock.

"You can put one 'l' or two [in Allan]. I don't care as long as I get the money, cuzz," says the New Plymouth trainer before his Kiwi horse, I Do, lines up in the $200,000 Makfi Challenge Stakes in Hastings today.

The high-class grey is the favourite for the $120,000 first prize plus trophies in the feature race of the first meeting of the JB Organics Hawke's Bay Spring Racing Carnival Triple Crown.

I Do (No Excuse Needed) provided an emotional conclusion in the colours of the Waikato Stud at Te Rapa a fortnight ago when she and jockey Opie Bosson clinched the Group 3 Lisa Chittick Foxbridge Plate.

"It's a script everyone wrote and wanted but it doesn't always come to fruition," Sharrock says after I Do provided the ideal climax for farm principal Mark Chittick, whose wife Lisa lost her battle with leukaemia earlier this year.

"There were a lot of tears, emotions and celebrations so it couldn't have been any better," says the man who had to come to terms with his personal tragedy at an impressionable age.

"I lost my mother to a road crash when I was only 13 years old," he says of his mother, the late Barbara Sharrock.

"Life sometimes serves you these things but you just carry on.

"Cowboys don't cry, do they?"

Co-owners Chittick and Sharrock also bred I Do which is to be served by Savabeel this spring.

The pair didn't rate their horse a Group 1 contender but that may be another twist to her fairytale script in the 4.17pm race today.

"I only rated her Group 2 but she's starting to push downtown and is a realistic chance of winning the race [Makfi Challenge]."

Sharrock isn't under any illusions of how difficult it'll be today, considering the line-up includes several Group 1 winners.

In football terms, it's like a second or third-division club winning the FA Cup.

"It's a testimony to how honest she is."

It was the 14th victory for the 7-year-old mare who has earned a shade under $350,000.

The Chitticks named the grand-daughter of the Group 1-placed St Leger winner Freequent after the song, I Do, I Do, I Do.

"It's a short, sweet name and everyone now knows who she is."

Sharrock describes I Do as "a dude who just wants to please".

"She's very laid back. When we saddle her up she puts on a game face and becomes taut in the lip area."

Sharrock has eight Group 1 victories in his illustrious career, including the New Zealand Bloodstock Insurance Spring Classic (now Livamol) in 2012 on Shez Sinsational.

"Everyone we won on had a good chance so, hopefully, we'll have another with I Do."

Suitable conditions are also on his wish list, preferably the wetter the better.

"John Bary won't like that but we won't worry about him," he says with a laugh of the Hastings trainer who is praying for a slow dead 5 today.

The sun has pushed through in the Hastings since Thursday but a persistent drizzle took hold from midday yesterday as the weather gods seem to be taking a stance of impartiality.

At Te Rapa, I Do powered clear to victory by two and a-half lengths from Pussy O'Reilly and The Filly (Ishiguru) who are also in the field today.

Sharrock rates the Kevin Myers' trained Scapolo and Xanadu.

Myers has lost jockey David Walker who on Thursday was charged with one of racing's most serious offences - deliberately holding a horse back from winning at Awapuni on August 16.