Horse racing: Road To Paris throws away jockey and race – Mick On Monday

Road To Paris was racing to victory in the $100,000 Wellington Stakes but seconds after this pic was taken, he shied and dislodged jockey Masa Hashizume. Photo / Race Images

Racing’s seemingly endless novel “Unbelievable Ways To Get Beaten” has another chapter.

The central characters are 3-year-old galloper Road To Paris and jockey Masa Hashizume, who were racing to a Group 3 win in the $100,000 Jennian Homes Wellington Stakes at Ōtaki when things went horribly wrong.

Race favourite Road To Paris was five strides from victory when he decided he didn’t like the look of the large white winning post and surrounding signage, shied and ducked right, dislodging Hashizume.

Road To Paris badly inconvenienced Ammirati, who was chasing him hard in second place, and at first watch it looked like the incident had cost both horses the race – but remarkably, the photo finish confirmed Ammirati somehow still had his nose in front on the line.

While horses shying at the winning post is nothing new, it rarely causes such carnage and obviously doesn’t happen often at Group 3 level.

“That’s racing,” co-trainer Robert Wellwood, who probably used some other words as he watched the mayhem unfold live, said.

“What can you do? The most important thing is the horse and Masa are both okay and nobody else in the race got injured.

“We still have a really good horse to go on with, his connections just don’t have about $60,000 in stake money but lets hope he has a good summer and wins it all back.”

The freak loss was in stark contrast to the rest of the weekend for the Roger James/Robert Wellwood stable as they trained three winners yesterday, with their Ellerslie victors Incandescent, ridden by Hashizume, and Sweynesday both looking feature race players in their respective grades over coming months.

The promoted winner Ammirati continued an incredible spring for trainer Stephen Marsh who has also won the New Zealand 1000 Guineas and Windsor Park Soliloquy Stakes with Well Written, the Sarten Memorial with Swiss Prince and the Hawkes Bay Guineas with Magic Carpet.

Add in elite levels wins for Ardalio, like Ammirati at least part-owned by Lib Petagna, and El Vencedor and Marsh leads the trainer’s black type race for the season with seven.

Dalgety takes title

Carter Dalgety continued a breakthrough last 12 months by winning the New Zealand Junior Drivers Championships at Methven on Sunday.

But you had to feel for North Island junior Monika Ranger, whose chances of winning the series were all but extinguished when her horse galloped in the fifth heat.

The series isn’t the actual Junior Driver’s premiership, which is decided on wins at the end of the season, but a time-honoured annual contest that brings 12 of the best young harness reinspeople in the country together to drive in six races with their horses assigned by ballot.

Ranger had a stunning start to the series, with a win and a second on the first two nights at Cambridge (Thursday) and Addington on Friday.

That saw her go into yesterday’s meeting nine points clear of Dalgety but those tables were turned when Dalgety drove Hey Tonight to win the fifth leg of the series while Ranger’s charge broke and finished 10th, but even worse was then even disqualified from that placing.

That gave Dalgety enough of a buffer that he was able to finish second last in the final heat and still win the series.

The young-gun horseman adds the title to his Group 1 wins on Republican Party, including the Auckland Cup, the Dunstan Sires’ Stakes Final on All Of Me just two weeks ago and the Breckon Farms Cardigan Bay Stakes with Fugitive in May as part of a dream last 12 months.

Dalgety also became the first male to win the series in eight years.

The two feature sprints at Methven were taken out by Esmeralda, who won the Green Mile like she might be the most improved pacer in the country, and Mighty Logan who overcame a second line draw to win the open class trot.

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.