Racing: Seaflyte loses rider with cup won

Patrick Holmes takes a tumble from Seaflyte in the Hawkes Bay Gold Cup at Hastings after being clear in the lead within the shadow of the post. Dom Domingo is launching his challenge on the outer. Photo / Hawke's Bay Today

Unless they bring back Mr Ed to tell us, we will never know for sure what made Seaflyte hit the running rail 30m short of winning Saturday's $70,000 Hawkes Bay Gold Cup.

Rider Patrick Holmes, hugely lucky not to be seriously injured when he went over the rail, believes it was the running rail having been painted black as it approaches the winning post.

Possibly.

Others have a different opinion.

In January, Cambridge trainer Anne Herbert won with Gendarme at Avondale, but knew the horse hadn't quite produced his best.

For his next start at Te Rapa on February 6, Herbert removed the shadow roll worn at Avondale and replaced it with a set of blinkers.

Stipendiary stewards approached in the birdcage and when asked why there was no shadow roll Herbert replied that she assumed that by applying blinkers it officially eliminated the shadow roll and that wearing both would not be permitted.

They are and she was fined $100 for the elimination of the shadow roll.

Husband Wayne, a hugely talented horseman who recently retired from public training, believes wearing both pieces of equipment should not be allowed because of the possible restriction of a horse's vision.

"I know a lot don't agree with that, but I'm sure it's right."

A shadow roll is applied to make a horse bring its head down when it is considered to be carrying it too high and blinkers make a horse concentrate, because they block sideways peripheral vision.

Seaflyte wore a shadow roll and blinkers on Saturday.

It is clear what happened leading up to the incident.

After leading, Seaflyte moved out three horse widths in the home straight when under pressure, but still going to win.

Patrick Holmes corrected and sent Seaflyte back on to a line that would have him alongside the running rail.

With his head down and bum up riding strongly, Holmes almost certainly didn't see he was on a collision course with the running rail.

When Seaflyte touched the rail, he did what most horses do, he panicked because he couldn't see in the heat of battle what was touching him, took a giant bound and dislodged Holmes over the rail.

Holmes copped a week's suspension for not keeping Seaflyte on a straighter path.

Whether Seaflyte would have seen the rail and not taken quite the same fright had he not been wearing a combination of blinkers and a shadow roll we'll never know.

"He's worn them both for a few starts now," said an obviously disappointed co-trainer Wayne Hillis yesterday.

"He started out just with blinkers, but he wouldn't put his head down so we put the shadow roll on him."

Hillis said he's not convinced it was the colour of the running rail that made Seaflyte hit the rail.

Although it's not unheard of that a horse will duck into something it takes fright from, generally, a horse will shy in the opposite direction if it's visually spooked.

Clearly, Seaflyte hit the rail because he didn't know it was there. If he had he wouldn't have got the same fright.

There are a million ways you can be beaten in horse racing.

This is just one of them.

Holmes was lucky to escape with lacerations to his left arm, which landed on top of the rail, and a cut leg.

When he landed, he narrowly missed contact with one of the metal uprights holding the rail.

You have to feel for Graham Richardson and his owners of Dom Domingo.

They win the Hawkes Bay Cup and can't get their photo in the newspaper.

The pic of Seaflyte firing rider Patrick Holmes over the running rail is always going to trump them.

That's life and Richardson - somewhat frustrated - accepts it.

It takes him back to when he won the group one Bayer Classic with Tobruk.

"I got home from Otaki that night and on the news, I forget which channel it was that showed the race, they said: 'Laurie Laxon, who won the Melbourne Cup with Empire Rose, had Just Call Me Sir in the Bayer Classic and it ran fifth. Nothing about the winner.'

"I couldn't believe it, but of course you realise that's all they know." Dom Domingo will one day square up the ledger for the talented Matamata horseman.

Richardson has always had a big opinion of the potential of Dom Domingo and has been protecting the overplaying of the development of that potential all the way through.

Which is why there is only a very slight chance of the talented grey going to the Brisbane winter carnival.

"He may go to the Rotorua Cup now and that will probably be it. It took him a while to come up this preparation because he copped a virus while he was spelling."