Racing: Moody has happy vision for Everest heights

Trainer Peter Moody with I Wish I Win and jockey Luke Nolan. Photo / Supplied

Peter Moody has had a lot of time to think this week.

The man in charge of I Wish I Win, one of the two Kiwis in tomorrow’s A$20 million Everest in Sydney alongside Joliestar, has done things his way in the build-up to the mega money sprint.

When the very theatrical barrier draw was held in a circus tent at Randwick on Tuesday (it’s hard to explain, let’s move on) Moody was at home in Victoria.

It won’t be the only Everest function he misses this week. Never comfortable in a suit and tie, the man they call Moods had declined invitations and parties to be with his horse.

Man and horse had plenty of time together overnight Wednesday as Moody loaded I Wish I Win into a two-horse trailer float and drove him from Victoria to Sydney himself.

Not that he doesn’t trust transport companies but it is the old-school way. Precious cargo and all that.

A 10-hour trip gives a man like Moody a lot of time to think about what might happen in 70 seconds of sprinting fury tomorrow, a little after 6.15pm (NZ time) because with the Everest being sold out the biggest certainty of the day is the race itself won’t jump on time.

So what does the man who trained I Wish I Win to run such a close second last year think will unfold?

“I’ve had a good think about it and I think Wish and Bella Nipotina are the two to beat,” he told the Herald. “I think it is a very even field and it could be a messy race.

“I am not sure there is a certain leader to create strong tempo and I can see them all being in a clump and us and Bella Nipotina being three wide, one following the other. “Then I am hoping after they have all got in each other’s way we get to the top of the straight and started reeling them in.

“If there is some give in the track, which would really help, and all that unfolds I think we give it a big shake.”

If Moody is right then some very talented three-year-olds in Storm Boy, Traffic Warden and most dangerously Growing Empire could be a long way in front of I Wish I Win as they crest the famous Randwick rise (300m mark).

That is when words like luck and fitness may matter less than another word: desire.

I Wish I Win is older than most of his rivals, including the other sparkling and yet untapped Joliestar, who moved into outright favouritism last night.

Older horses can get into a habit of going good races rather than great. That desire to stretch, to chase, to run through the pain barrier be it in the lungs or legs, can dull.

That is why so many older horses are running on in races but not running past those youngsters to whom this is still all a game.

Moody knows this better than most which is why he has raced I Wish I Win so sparingly in the last 18 months.

“Because of the way his legs are shaped, which isn’t good, if we have over-raced him he could have got that way, got a bit stale.

“So we haven’t raced him much, we have let him get over his runs and looked after him.

“I think that is one reason that desire is still there. I have seen nothing to suggest it is not and I know he will need it.” At the top of that Randwick rise tomorrow I Wish I Win will need every bit of it.

One of those three-year-olds or maybe Joliestar could be a long way in front of him and his heart will need to be full as his lungs start to empty.

If it is, with a sprinkling of luck and a shower of rain, I Wish I Win can go one better than last year.

And Moody can spend the long drive back to Victoria with less on his mind and a smile on his face.

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.