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.