“Mr Fixit” comes to the fore again

Queensland horseman Al Barnes is a noted “Mr Fixit” of problem horses, but even he agrees he had his work cut out with a former Kiwi pacer.

“It’s been a bit of a journey – a very slow process over a lot of time. I’d just fix one thing and then something else would bob up,” Barnes said.

“But I’d do it all again. There was never a time when I was going to give up on him,” he laughed.

The experienced trainer-driver, based at Tallegalla, near Ipswich, was rewarded for his perseverance when he drove four-year-old gelding Joey Lincoln NZ (Sweet Lou-Bettabe Fast (Bettors Delight) to score nicely at Albion Park on Tuesday afternoon – the horse’s third victory for the stable.

“Before I got him, I knew he was a rogue. Ray Green had him over in New Zealand and he’d run out the gate on Ray as well as other silly things. He was also doing it wrong on the track,” Barnes said.

“The owners decided to give the horse a second chance, so that’s when I got him. He had a ton of speed, but didn’t know how to handle it. I don’t think he was ready for the races.”

So Joey Lincoln was carted off to the trials, running around in education and official trials at Albion Park.
Barnes said after winning all six of these, the pacer was sent out a warm $1.30 favorite when making his race debut.

“He galloped with 300m to go and ran fourth. The owners then just wanted him gone,” Barnes said.
“We paid $20K for the horse which we were happy with because he’d always shown ability despite being immature. I kept thinking back about the time he went a tick over 1.55 in winning one of the trials and came home in 56.2 and was still on the bit!

“He won in Brisbane at his fourth race start for us and then two starts later was successful at Redcliffe. He then bled and got stood down for three months.

“When we got him back to racing, he lost the plot for a while. He got into a bad habit of galloping and was also pulling his brains out at home. I think it was a confidence thing and perhaps he was scared he would bleed again.

“So we’ve nursed him along and looked after him as well as thrown a lot of the gear off, including his head check and the drop nose-band.”

Barnes said that Joey Lincoln was now “good as gold” and believes the main turning point was when he realized the horse had an allergy to dust.

“I sort of picked up on it when he was in a box with shavings,” he said.

“So I moved him out to a day yard, but that became dusty when it got dry again. So now he’s trained out of a big grassy paddock, and he seems very happy. He’s actually a beautiful horse now.”

Barnes said he planned to keep Joey Lincoln for another 12 months and then possibly send him over to the States.

“He’s never far away in his races, but he’s also one of those horses that doesn’t seem to get a lot of luck come his way. But he’s still got some wins left in him that’s for sure.”

By Terry Gange for Harnesslink