Our Pinocchio shows his class

Quality trotter Our Pinocchio (Bacardi Lindy) showed his class when he rounded up a large field in the main trot at the Wyndham Harness Racing Club’s meeting today.

Owned by the Griffin’s Number Three Syndicate and The Griffins Syndicates (the original biscuits!!!) the four year old is trained at Oamaru by Phil Williamson.

The race start was delayed when Velocity City proved a handful for driver Sarah O’Reilly, but Our Pinocchio remained calm.

“It wasn’t ideal for a horse starting off the unruly and who missed away at his last start, so you start to worry. Luckily he was walking around good as gold and relaxed and made a nice start,” said driver Matty Williamson.

During the early stages of the race Our Pinocchio got well back with Two Many Muscles (Muscle Mass) and Cool Phelan (Pegasus Spur) making every post a winner, but Our Pinocchio was trotting nicely.

“Once he gets away he’s pretty good.”

With a lap to run Our Pinocchio was still fifteen lengths off the leaders.

“They were going hard the whole way and he was flat enough during the running.”

Inside the 600 he still had nine lengths to make up. Williamson then made his move but had to come five wide at the point of the turn as the two leaders slipped away.

“At the 600 it was time to go. They were all getting in the road so I had to come really wide and luckily he was good enough to do it.”

Under strong urging Our Pinocchio came down the outside of the track to beat Cool Phelan by three quarters of a length.

OUR PINOCCHIO REPLAY

“He’s got a nice turn of foot so I think it’ll stand to him when he goes up the grades. He’s a horse with good ability and I think he’ll he able to handle those next few grades.”

It was the talented trotter’s third win from twenty starts.

Our Pinocchio was bred by Bevan and the late Keith Grice and is out of their good Sundon mare Jo-Anne which won twelve races including the New Zealand Two Year Old Trotting Stakes for trainer Mark Smolenski.

The Griffins Syndicate has won over one hundred races with trotting stock primarily provided by the Grice’s.

When asked for a Cup Day tip Williamson threw out Cranbourne in the Junior Free for All.

Another son of Bacardi Lindy, Switch On, also won at Wyndham today.

SWITCH ON REPLAY

The two year old was having his first start for Northern Southland trainer Brent McIntyre after a small group of owners including Art Shirley and Barry Croft bought the gelding for $5,000 from his breeder Alan Clark. Clark started  Switch On four times.

Also, earlier in the day Durrant (Art Major) won his first race at start number thirteen. The Kirk Larsen trained gelding whose full brother Merlin will start in the Woodlands Stud Sires Stakes Final at Addington on Tuesday, was driven by Larsen’s son Tristan.

For complete race results, click here.

by Bruce Stewart for Harnesslink