THE words of John Hawkes were ringing in the ears of jockey Tommy Berry as Chautauqua turned for home climbing over the backs of wall of horses: “Don’t panic, you’re on the best horse in the race”.
Berry kept his cool and much to the relief of nervous punters Hawkes was more than right: the best horse in the race was a superstar.
Chautauqau found clear air, rocketed home and won the 1200m Group 1 Manikato Stakes by a breathtaking two lengths.
“John said if you can get out at the 600m that’s fine but don’t panic, something will drop off - when you are in a field of good sprinters they sprint and everything opens up,” Berry said.
“Usually he can reel in five or six lengths very quickly, but he only had two lengths to make up so that made it quite easy,” Berry said.
The Sydney jockey said he was unusually nervous flying to Melbourne before the race.
“On the plane, I couldn’t sleep and that rarely happens to me,” Berry said.
“I just think I knew I was riding an exciting horse.”
Wayne Hawkes said Chautauqua was the best sprinter he had ever laid a hand on.
“The only times he’s really been beaten, to be fair, have been bad luck and he had one shocking day in the first year of The Championships at Randwick - he just went terrible and we still haven’t worked out why,” Hawkes said.
“He’s only had one bad blemish in his career. He’s super horse.”
Hawkes said the five-year-old gelding would now head to the Darley Classic at Flemington, setting up a potential mouth-watering clash with star three-year-old Exosphere.
“He’s a great horse Exosphere, there’s no doubt about that, but he goes pretty good this horse, too,” Hawkes said.
“We’ll go to Flemington next and take it one race at a time, but you never know we might go and meet The Queen.”
Ciaron Maher’s mare Srikandi finished second, Rebel Dane finished third, while people’s champion Buffering felt the hot early pace to fade into fifth.
In a sensational subplot to the night, in-form jockey Mark Zahra was suspended for 22 meetings for setting off a chain of interference that caused fellow jockey Chris Parnham to fall.
Parnham proved his mettle by bouncing back three races later to win on the Robert Smerdon-trained Reldas 90 minutes later.
“Being a jockey these things happen to you but it was good to bounce back with a winner. I didn’t want to miss this one,” he said.
Darren Weir continued his hot streak with an early $15.90 running double – both Our Voodoo Prince and Lucky Paddy being ridden Zahra.
Weir said he would look at the Ballarat Cup as an option for Our Voodoo Prince, a former Chris Waller runner.
“It’d be a nice race for him and he’d get in reasonably well at the weights; a nice race to aim towards, I would have thought,” Weir said.
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