Lemmy Douglas eases Weneedashock down at the line after winning the Raukawa Cup on his home course at Ōtaki.
Lemmy Douglas eases Weneedashock down at the line after winning the Raukawa Cup on his home course at Ōtaki.
The running of the Raukawa Cup for the first time at the Ōtaki-Māori Racing Club’s annual Matariki meeting on Friday saw a local horse get the spoils.
Weneedashock is trained at Ōtaki by Howie Mathews who has a knack of winning races on his home track.
Otaki MāoriRacing CEO Ben Jamison said it was always good to see a local horse win to have the Raukawa Cup, which this year was run at the Matariki meeting. The race is normally held later in the year.
“We’ve been planning this for a while and to see how the races have stacked up, and it’s one of the highest amount of nominations - 181 in total - for this day ever,” he said.
“We originally had an eight-race programme, but decided to add two more due to the large amount of nominations.
“What’s even more fitting is to have a local victory in the feature race, the Raukawa Cup, in Weneedashock trained by Howie Mathews.”
Jamison praised the work of his ground staff, headed by former jockey Kane Smith, whose efforts contributed to another good racing surface.
“To have fields as good as this is quite testament to how our track is performing, and this is due to the effort from Kane Smith and his team,” he said.
Weneedashock was ridden by Lemmy Douglas who said the horse felt good from the time he left the barrier.
“He was travelling real good the whole way, and sort of pulled me to the front coming round the turn and headed to the outside for better ground, and he just kept going,” he said.
Weneedashock returns to scale after winning the Raukawa Cup at Ōtaki.
Weneedashock is a 5-year-old gelding by former Melbourne Cup winner Shocking from the Australian-bred mare Prado Red. He has now won five of 28 starts and $81,675 in prizemoney.
The horse was overlooked by punters and returned a win dividend of $32.40 - incredible money for a horse that was being considered a Wellington Cup contender earlier this year.
It was a good training feat by Mathews to have the horse in winning form in what was just his second start back from a spell.
