Racing: Outsider runs away with cup

By MIKE DILLON

John Mason may be a knockabout horseman from the tiny South Waikato settlement of Whakamaru, but he has more in his pocket than the winning prize from Saturday's $40,000 Kiwifruit Cup at Tauranga.

He has some of Sheikh Mohammed's money.

Mason recently sold a horse to the Sheikh, the world's biggest racehorse owner and Crown Prince of Dubai.

"Not a racehorse, an Anglo/Arab endurance horse," Mason said yesterday, confirming there is a good business opportunity in that area.

Sheikh Mohammed is as heavily into endurance horse competition as he is thoroughbred racing and regularly competes in endurance in Dubai, where the sport has a huge following.

Mason's wife, Andrea, has twice won the New Zealand endurance national title.

"I leave those to my wife - I keep myself busy with a couple of slow racehorses," says Mason.

One of those, Real Vision, showed he was anything but slow when running away with the Kiwifruit Cup at odds of 22-1.

Real Vision is best known as a sprinter/metric miler, a handle Mason says is erroneous.

"A couple of seasons ago he was competing with Kaapstad Way and they were running 2000m in two minutes at a time when few others were running that time.

"And, Lance O'Sullivan won a 2000m race on him at Riccarton."

Real Vision's formline this campaign read 8935 before Saturday and Mason says he may have contributed to that.

"I wanted to get him to settle to run middle distances and decided to run him into form this time in and perhaps he's learned a few tricks.

"The other thing is he's much more laid back this preparation and he might be doing more thinking than we think."

Mason attributes the return to form to rider Noel Harris.

"We thought he would win with Noel aboard two starts back at Ellerslie, but he switched off.

"He did the same thing last start at Ellerslie.

"Noel was very good. He sat down and worked out what to do and he rode him perfectly yesterday.

"The key is to ride him handy to the speed, but get him to switch off, because he can get going a bit hard over ground.

"A few have put a cross against his staying ability, but that's actually not fair."

Saturday's win was Real Vision's ninth, but his first in a group or listed event.

Mason bred Real Vision's mother, Regal Dell, and her sister, Jaboulet, who became the dam of this year's Queensland Magic Millions winner, Lovely Jubly.

"I sold Jaboulet to Jim Campin as a weanling and he sold her on as a yearling. That's how she ended up in Australia.

"That side of the family is breeding on well so it was important that this bloke got some black type for the part of the family I still have."

Mason says Real Vision was the cheapest horse he bred out of his mare.

He had been stud manager at Chequers Stud, Cambridge, at the time Campin had the brilliant Phillipa Rush and Jennifer Rush and decided to switch from high-profile Chequers stallion Deputy Governor to the budget Vision Quest.

"Jim had him standing at $600.

"It's remarkable how in racing sometimes the cheapest horse will turn out the best."

Mason has a problem - he wishes Riccarton's Winter Cup, run in early August, was a month earlier.

He knows he has to give Real Vision a race before then to retain his fitness, but is worried if he wins again, his Riccarton weight might put him out of contention after Saturday's win.

"I'll probably give him a run in the 1600m at Ellerslie a couple of weeks before Riccarton - he won that last year."

The Kiwifruit Cup was a classic example of how some horses will handle some winter tracks, but few handle them all.

Favourite Van Winkle at no stage looked comfortable and was never going to figure, ending up a well-beaten fifth.

Second favourite Okiwi Bay was second and Oliverdance third.