A late decision to let El Chico take his chance in the Listed Timaru Cup proved to be a masterstroke with the Riccarton marvel once again upstaging his younger rivals.
The evergreen 9-year-old handed age, weight and a beating to his rivals in the Coupland's Bakeries-sponsored feature at the PharLap Raceway yesterday for the 19th victory of his career.
John Parsons and I were talking this morning and he said he was pulling Arietta out and at 6.55am I wasn't going to run him because of the track and it was only when Arietta scratched that I decided to, trainer Michael Pitman said.
He's been very unlucky in this race before and he's just a grouse old horse.
El Chico sat off the speed and came with a well-timed finish in the straight to down the pacemaker Dr Dee Bee, who was in receipt of two kilos. It was a beautiful ride by Terry (Moseley), Pitman said.
He races the son of Stravinsky with John and Evelyn Carran and the gelding's lifetime earnings have topped $450,000.
I bought him as a country cups horse and he's won 14 races for us now we only paid $20,000 for him, Pitman said. He's in at Kurow and Waikouaiti so he'll run next at one of those two places.
El Chico won his first two races when based in the North Island and was also successful for Ashburton trainer Jan Hay before he joined the Pitman team.
