Horse racing: Something Skew Wiff about starts

Skew Wiff winning the Tarzino Trophy at Hastings last start.

One of New Zealand’s best racehorses is going back to school to try and salvage her A$10million ($10.64m) Australian campaign.

Last-start Tarzino Trophy winner Skew Wiff left her connections frustrated and annoyed when she played up in the barriers before the Rose Of Kingston Stakes at Flemington on Saturday and had to be scratched.

It has thrown her Australian campaign into disarray and trainers Mark Walker and Sam Bergerson have taken the advice of champion Australian trainer Peter Moody about how best to solve her barrier phobia.

“She didn’t hurt herself at all so that is one good thing,” says Walker of the incident. “But I was talking to Moods after the race and he referred us to a guy in Victoria called Julien Welsh who is apparently very good at getting horses settled down around the barriers.

“He also works with the starters over here so we have sent her [Skew Wiff] to him for a few days to see if he can get her more comfortable with the starting procedures over there.”

Welsh is something of a legend in Victoria, an old-school horseman who recently drove a horse and cart 1800kms from Packenham in Victoria to Rockhampton in Queensland. He took his dog for company.

If that all sounds a bit like a modern-day Man From Snowy River stuff you won’t be surprised to hear Welsh was actually in the movie Man From Snowy River II.

So yes, he is all the way old school.

Walker is hoping whatever Welsh does with Skew Wiff will calm her enough that she can behave herself before and during a trial at Cranbourne next Monday, and then return to the races in the Tristarc Stakes at Caulfield on October 21.

“If she can do all of that, we will know where we stand and whether she can head to Sydney for the Golden Eagle,” says Walker.

“But if she has another issue and he can’t get that race in her Mark Chittick [owner] says he has no qualms bringing her home. “So the first big step toward the Golden Eagle is that trial next Monday.”

While Skew Wiff has hardly covered herself in glory in Victoria yet, her stablemate who has, Imperatriz, is spot on as she ticks over toward the A$2m ($2.13m) Manikato at The Valley on October 28.

“She was a little stiff the day after her win in the Moir [September 29] but bounced straight back out of it the next day and she has been great since,” said Walker.

Imperatriz is an incredibly short $1.60 in the TAB futures market for the Manikato, a very rare example of a horse being odds-on for a major Australian Group 1 sprint two weeks out from the race.

The Walker/Bergerson stable, who are 25 wins clear on the national trainer’s Premiership, will only have one rep in Saturday’s $450,000 Livamol Classic at Hastings.

“Aromatic will be our only starter and Warren Kennedy will ride her because he was already committed to her,” says Walker. “Brando will bypass it and head to a race at Tauranga while Campionessa got a bit sick after her last start there so she will have a let-up.”