Captain Ravishing is back and ready to go

He was once billed as a complete excitement machine – and tomorrow night (Sept 13) at Geelong sensational pacer Captain Ravishing (Captaintreacherous) will kick off a campaign pointing to his return as a big player on the national harness racing stage.

The five-year-old son of Captaintreacherous has had a long and slow preparation over the past six months, but trainer Freddy Taiba, of Sunbury, is understandably very happy to have the horse back at the races.

“He’s had two recent trials at Melton and went pretty good. He’s sound, happy and ready to go,” Taiba said.

“I thought the Geelong race over a mile looked ideal – and then I saw the conditions of it being restricted to horses that haven’t won over $15K in the last six months, so it was just perfect,” he said.

Both Captain Ravishing (NR106) and the consistent Andy Gath-trained free-for-aller Yambukian (Bettors Delight) (NR107) have taken advantage of the anomalous race conditions, meeting a field that otherwise ranges from NR50 to NR78.

“There’s a few runners in it that go okay, but hopefully we can build up our form and tackle some of the coming feature events,” Taiba said.

“The Victoria Cup at Melton next month is on the radar. Then probably our biggest target is the Miracle Mile in Sydney in March, which sounds a long way off, but it’s not really.”

The star hasn’t been seen at the races for 10 months ago when he had to settle for the runners-up cheques in the Yarra Valley Pacing Cup and then in the Breeders Crown 4yo Final at Melton, the latter taken out by star rival Catch A Wave.

Taiba said that when vets later found some bone soreness in a hind pastern, the horse headed straight out for a rest.

“I think they recommended he be out for three months, but he ended up having a bit more than that,” he said.

To see Captain Ravishing, owned by Taiba’s brother Hass, recapture his best form would be something special for a flagging Victorian industry, faced with huge financial problems.

 Captain Ravishing was purchased for $80K at the 2020 Australian Gold sales in Sydney by Hass Taiba, who has been in the sport for over 30 years.  In a real family affair, brother Ahmed who is a respected trainer along with competing as a driver, still assists daily at the Sunbury stables.

The sport needs champions to bring people back to the trots and many are proud to say they were at Melton back on November 19, 2022, when a rampaging Captain Ravishing won the $100K Woodlands Stud Breeders Crown by nearly 30 metres.

The three-year-old returned to scale to cheers after smashing Lochinvar Art’s 2240m track record with a blistering 1.51-1.

From just 18 outings, Captain Ravishing has nine wins, four second placings and one third for stake money of over $518K.

by Terry Gange, for Harnesslink