Racing: Wait A Sec ... It's Mustang time

Johnathan Parkes rides Wait A Sec (far right) to a close win over Gingernuts (far left) in yesterday's Livamol Classic. Photo/Paul Taylor

Farmer and horse breeder Ian Henderson was only joking when he told Poukawa neighbour and racing club president Tim McPhee he'd buy the $83,000 Mustang they were eyeing-up at the Royal Show on Friday if his horse won Hawke's Bay's richest race.

But last night, even if at 73 regarding himself as a bit senior for a Mustang, he was definitely in the market for a new automobile after seven-year-old Wait A Sec won Hawke's Bay Racing's Group 1 Livamol Classic.

In just 2min5.59 sec Wait A Sec, bred in partnership by Henderson and owned by himself and Perth-based son Paul, upset hotpot and possibly Melbourne-bound 2017 New Zealand Derby winner Gingernuts to add $156,250 to the gelding's payroll - almost as much as the $161,769 in the rest of its three years and 11 months of racing for 40 starts and 10 wins.

But it was close as jockey Johnathan Parkes rode a perfectly-judged charge on the rails at the end of the 14-horse 2040-metres feature, paying $26.80 to win on the TAB, in a short-head win over Gingernuts, which had been paying less than $2 to win.

A fourth win in its last five starts, including the Egmont Cup a week earlier, the victory was the fourth on the home track for Wait A Sec, and the seventh in the hands of Parkes, who won the race on Ransomed in 2013 and has 682 wins to his credit.

The mind-over-matter car stuff suddenly wasn't the only poser for Henderson in the wake of the race, which brought back memories of the last home-track winners of the race, which had total stakes of $250,000 but was, in 2007 and 2008, the richest in the country with stakes almost 10-times greater at $2 million.

Standing with wife Mary, who said the influence of her "Scottish" heritage had something to do with the win, Henderson said he might have to rethink the pre-race plans to head to Riccarton and the $75,000 Metropolitan Handicap on November 11, over a distance of 2500 metres, at which Wait a Sec won at Hastings in April, and the $250,000 New Zealand Cup over 3200 metres.

"He's been in great form for a long time," said co-trainer Grant Cullen.

"Things could change," said Henderson, though it was, of course, too late to think of a crack at next Saturday's $3.4 million WS Cox Plate, for which the Hastings Classic was once set as a lead-up event over the mutual distance of 2040 metres.

Not that he would have thought about entering such exalted class on the other side of the Tasman, where he has never raced a horse. A year ago he and trainers Grant Cullen and Guy Lawry weren't even dreaming of winning a Group 1 race.

The race had been on the radar only since nominations in August, said Cullen, who credited Lowry with most of the work getting Wait A Sec's attitude right working on the farm south of Hastings.

Asked if a year ago Wait A Sec might have been set for such a race, Cullen replied: "To be honest - No."

"He's just a very happy horse, and he's very fit," he said.

Henderson said son Paul was unable to get home from Perth. "But if we knew this was going to happen we would have made sure he was here."

By Postponed out of Grosvenor mare Security, Wait A Sec had raced well back before Parkes drove through a gap 150 metres from the post to take a rail-hugging lead, holding out fast-finishing four-year-old Gingernuts - the "absolute standout" in the birdcage beforehand, according to race commentators.

Endean Rose was half-a-length away, third, paying $14.10 for a place, a neck ahead of rank-outsider St Emilion, which led down the back and into the final turn.

Wait A Sec's win capped a great day for the Hawke's Bay stables, with Cullen and Lowry taking the opening race with four-year-old gelding Londaro, and John Bary two races, including the $70,000 Group 3 Red Badge Spring Sprint with five-year-old mare Miss Wilson.

The last Hawke's Bay winner was trainer Bary's Jimmy Choux in 2011, and the next-most-recent Moss Downs in 1997, trained by Chris McNab.