Racing: Huge farewell on Cup day

Indikator (white cap) sensationally wins his fourth Rotorua Cup. Photo / Trish Dunell

Indikator set for hurdles after one of toughest dog fights in big race results to claim fourpeat.

Winning major races can do strange things to people - like make them change their minds.

But Keith Opie won't be going back on his promise of late last week that Saturday's $70,000 Campbell Infrastructure Rotorua Cup will be Indikator's last serious flat race.

Not even in the euphoria of the rising 11-year-old's sensational fourth Rotorua Cup victory on Saturday.

Veteran jumps jockeys don't shed tears, but Opie came as close as he'll get when he and training partner and son Gavin watched Reese Jones bring Indikator back in after one of the toughest dog fights in a major race in recent years.

Opie senior has won a Railway with So Dandy and a handful of group one races, but nothing compares to this fourth Rotorua Cup.

"We've only got a small team, but he's the type of horse that makes you look good."

There has always been something very special about Indikator as a horse. "He always looks special on raceday," says Opie with pride, "and I thought he looked exceptional this time.

"We put the saddle on him and he walked away as quiet as you'd want except for one little squeal. He'd been getting jumpy and nervous before recent races, but this time it looked as though the pennies had all fallen into place."

You can get as much as you like right about a horse's physicality, but you can't get into their minds.

Indikator has never been a bludger, but veteran horses often get into the frame of mind that says: "Look, I've done enough in my career, I don't think I want to do this today".

That's not the same as a young horse who bludges.

Indikator these days needs encouragement and Reese Jones, an enforcer of a rider, is the perfect partner for him. That became obvious at the 600m when Indikator clearly gave signs of wanting to give up. Jones tapped him down the shoulder a few times to let him know that wasn't acceptable and he held his ground.

Into the home straight Jones rode the veteran as hard as he could - and that's hard.

"Reese knows him well," says Keith Opie.

"He doesn't let him bludge, he says, 'Come on, there's no giving up on Rotorua Cup day'."

This was a superb bit of conditioning and training by Keith and Gavin Opie to nurse their pride and joy through two unplaced runs since a spell and to last a desperate struggle with the much younger Pump Up The Volume, to whom he was conceding 4.5kg.

"Even though Reese had been happy with that last unplaced run at Te Rapa, I wasn't quite sure where I was with him so I sprinted him over three hurdles on Thursday morning. I thought, well, he may not want to be a racehorse any more so I haven't got a lot to lose.

"All the work he did was sprint over three hurdles, probably 400m in all, then I took him home and put him in his paddock."

The jumping will continue. Opie will take Indikator to Cambridge on Thursday morning where his jumps rider Craig Thornton will school him.

"At that stage the horse will tell me whether he's come through this run okay and if so we'll head to a hurdle race at Hastings the following Thursday and then set for the Manawatu Hurdles."

Indikator won his only hurdle race to date and looks set to continue to be a star in his new role.

Shaun McKay not only rode his first winner at Rotorua on Saturday, he did it with the best ride in the race.

Impatience is the hallmark of young apprentices looking for their initial success, but young McKay displayed rare patience getting Vettel home first.

Vettel was travelling well when he loomed to the leaders on the home bend and took the front. With the winning post in sight the temptation to suddenly go all out on the horse would have been enormous, but McKay sat quietly for fully 100m.

That is the sign of someone who is going to make it.