Racing: Breeding also a breeze for Jim

By MIKE DILLON

You would not even guess at the satisfaction Jim Gibbs will get if Vinaka wins Saturday's $120,000 Ford Manawatu Breeders Stakes.

Chiefly because Gibbs is intensely private.

The former jumps jockey who became a champion horse trainer has a pride in which he is content to luxuriate alone.

Gibbs will have pride in Vinaka if the hugely talented youngster gets over the line first at the weekend, but it won't be matched by the pride he will have in producing yet another gun racehorse for only a handful of dollars.

Gibbs could re-name his Matamata stables "The Warehouse - where everyone gets a bargain."

The big-noting with a client's chequebook to buy the yearling sale-topper is not for him.

No one before him has plucked more bargains from the sale ring.

Who wouldn't be big on themselves for finding Doriemus for $4500, the same year he took home Coberger for $8000.

As 5-year-olds Coberger was voted NZ Champion Sprinter and Doriemus, off the back of his Caulfield-Melbourne cups double, was declared Australasian Champion Stayer of the Year and voted the third best stayer in the world.

Gibbs understandably loves Doriemus, who spends his retirement at his stables after doing most of his racing from Lee Freedman's Melbourne camp, but when he talks of the old warrior his mind goes back to the 1986 Derby presentation at Ellerslie.

Gibbs received the trophy for New Zealand's premier classic and said: "Everyone who's got a horse, go home and give it a feed, you never know what you've got."

At the time Gibbs was looking at his little Derby winner Tidal Light walking around in front of him.

The Matamata trainer admits he wasn't sure what he had 24 hours after paying $4250 for Tidal Light at the sales.

"I took her home and she was so small everyone laughed at me."

Gibbs laughed last, but admits when he took the filly out of her box the next morning he thought he'd made a blue.

"On one side of her was a filly by Sir Tristram from top mare Harp, who had been just beaten in an Auckland Cup and on the other a filly by One Pound Sterling from Blue Denim, who won the Auckland and Sydney cups and finished second in a Melbourne Cup.

"And Tidal Light couldn't see over the top of her box.

"But that morning I lunged her and gave her the stable name of "Speed", she was such a lovely mover."

Tidal Light added group one wins in the Air NZ Stakes and Sydney's Canterbury Guineas to her Derby win, was named Horse Of The Year and the two richly-bred fillies who shared her early days at the stable, both failed to win a race.

"You literally have no idea of what you've got until you try them," said Gibbs yesterday.

Jon was another cheap big-race winner at that time and more recently Gibbs has found Cleese ($15,000), Jaiapeno ($9000) and last Saturday's dashing winner Butterscotch, for whom he paid reasonable money, but who is now worth nearly 15 times her purchase price.

Gibbs bred Vinaka from a mare who failed to measure up in the South Island after he leased it.

"That gives you a lot of satisfaction to have bred a nice horse like him going into a group one race.

"It's got to be good for the small breeder."

Gibbs is extremely pleased with the way Vinaka has trained on since winning stylishly at Matamata and completing a gallop between races at Tauranga last weekend.

He was the first New Zealand trainer to reach the $1 million and $2 million benchmarks in a season, but these days prefers to train just 15 horses, only a handful for select outside clients.

"It allows you to go along at a quieter pace."

That tempo will quicken if Vinaka hits the lead inside the 200m on Saturday.