Mick On Monday: Patience should pay off for returning sprinter

Twain is a summer class sprinter who still relishes heavy tracks. Photo / Kenton Wright

The words of the late and legendary Bart Cummings were ringing in trainer John Bell’s ears when he deferred Twain’s comeback to racing a week ago.

But Bell says the high-class sprinter is now ready to resume on a winning note at Te Aroha today.

Twain (race four, No 3) looked a black-type sprinter over the summer, which is no surprise as his dam Fleur De Lune won our greatest sprinting race, The Railway, in 2013.

What is a little more surprising for a big, strong, fast horse of his quality is that Twain relishes the heavy tracks, being unbeaten in three starts in the mud.

Which is why he is racing at the start of winter, while most of the speedsters he was banging heads with at Ellerslie on New Years Day are relaxing in a nice, dry stable somewhere.

Twain was actually supposed to return to racing nine days ago but after a stellar piece of work during the week leading up to that, he was deemed to be not quite right on the Thursday before the races, his blood report being just out.

“As the great Bart Cummings said, ‘if in doubt, leave them out’,” says Bell, one of the great characters of North Island racing.

“So I scratched him that day but took him back to the trials at Te Awamutu last Tuesday.

“Triston Moodley, who rides him on Monday, was on him at the trials and I told him not to use the whip behind the saddle and the most he could do was tap him on the shoulder.

“Well, he hit the lead but started to get lazy, Triston gave him one tap and he took off and bolted in.

“So he is ready to go.”

What he lacks in race fitness, Twain makes up for in class – and while his 58kg is a decent weight for a horse who has only won four races, he has the physique to carry it and Moodley’s claim does shave 1kg off that impost.

It still might take the best version of Twain to run down a speedster like Shoes with her 3kg claim taking her down to 53.5kg.

Also claiming today and sure to love the Heavy 10 track is topweight Caitlyns Wish, who won twice in the first two weeks of June last year and in late May the year before – so this is her time to shine.

But she has never won carrying more than 54.5kg due to her wonderful association with apprentice Maria Sanson so faces a new challenge today.

Today’s meeting is one of the crossover fixtures that sees black-type sprinters and some talented juveniles (race 3) racing just after the hurdlers and steeplechasers return to the Te Aroha track where the now two-day Great Northern carnival will be staged on September 19 and 21 to provide a centrepiece at the end to the jumping season.

One of the more interesting jumpers today is Yolo (race one, No 9), another of the Kevin Myers jumping army.

While she has only won four races, Yolo often had a little something about her in the flat and should be better for her debut hurdles outing last season, when she only finished fourth, looking out of sorts as horses often do on their jumping debuts.

Corey Wiles can claim up to 3kgs on her today but with his listed riding weight being 66kgs it is doubtful Yolo will get that full claim down to 64kgs but she still looks likely to start a warm favourite.

The Te Aroha meeting gets under way at 11.20am and should be all done by 4.15pm.

Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.