Punters delight as Blake gets plunge horse home

Sharp-eyed trials watchers wouldn’t have believed their eyes when odds of 19/1 were served up for a visiting New South Wales pacer at last Tuesday night’s (Feb 4) Shepparton harness racing fixture.

And after being crunched in to start $1.80 favorite, punters had every reason to be feeling pretty happy with themselves when Seaside Delight (Downbytheseaside) worked to front in the early stages.

Perfectly rated by 25-year-old reinsman Blake Micallef, the pacer was impressive in taking out the Neatline Homes 3YO Maiden Pace. The win had extra significance as Blake has now had three trips to Shepparton for three wins.

Seaside Delight won by five metres from Fifty Seven Chevy (Monique Burnett) after reeling off quarters of 28.8, 31.5, 28.2 and 28.4 for a mile rate of 1.56-7.

“I’m not sure where all the money come from, but a lot of people saw the horse win impressively at the trials and there was plenty of talk about,” Blake’s father and Seaside Delight’s trainer David Micallef said.

“We gave him two trials at Wagga Wagga, which is one hour and 50 minutes away from where we are near Young.

“The idea behind that was to give the horse two road-trips because he’d never been away, and also the Wagga track is similar to Shepparton in size.”

Seaside Delight won his first trial just over a fortnight ago in 1.55-9 and then went even quicker in winning at his next one in 1.55 flat.

Micallef said the gelding’s owner, farmer Mick Rowan, lives close by and asked Blake to give the horse a go after others had no luck.

“Mick started off with a few horses and got a win at Canberra. Seaside Delight has now given him his second winner and a VicBred bonus to go with it,” Micallef said.

“Blake always liked the horse, from day one actually. Touch wood that everything keeps going in this manner because he hasn’t looked back and appears to have a bit of promise. Blake thinks there could be a lot of improvement yet because he’s very green and still learning to race,” he said.

“He’s a really placid fellow, just a lovely, easy going big horse. He’ll improve with more racing because it will make him more mature. We’ll see how he’s going when the VicBred races come around, but he won’t be over-raced that’s for sure.”

The Micallefs have a 50-acre property at Monteagle in the NSW southwest slopes area and prepare a team of 18 horses. Blake has driven 342 winners with his last four seasons being consistent with 53, 68, 81 and 74 victories.  David has trained 316 winners with some of his best horses being Christy and Our Sams Home (16 wins each); Billysbredone (13 wins); and Golden Zara (12 wins).

Blake went to school and was good mates with promising young reinsman Nick Dewar who was tragically killed in a road accident in 2018 on his way home from competing at Shepparton. The Young and Shepparton clubs hold an annual race series in memory of Nick.

“Blake has won races on two nights the series has been held at Shepparton, and now he’s made it three trips to Shepparton for three wins with Seaside Delight,” David said.

“It’s a five-hour trip down to Shepparton. Blake, his partner Mel and owner Mick drove down and they let the horses out into a paddock for a few hours at Steve Duffy’s place when they got there,” Micallef said.

“Because they were in early races, they decided to drive back and got home at 1.30 am.”

Seaside Delight has had a couple of easy days after his Shepparton trip and his next start will be at Bathurst.

For complete race results, click here.

by Terry Gange, for Harnesslink