It certainly wasn’t about the $1,700 prizemoney, and the East’s Bowling Club Stake is not exactly a time-honoured event. Normally race 8 at Maitland on a Monday night is all about success or failure in the final leg of the quaddie, but not on the opening night of March, 2021. This time it was all about the return to the racetrack of one of the superstars of the sport, Flying Ricciardo.
And to say it was a good return would be saying winning lotto would be nice.
Two words best summed up the performance … He’s back!
Before Monday night at Maitland, Flying Ricciardo hadn’t raced since winning the Group 1 Dapto Megastar back on December 10. Soon after he headed to Melbourne to trial for the Silver Chief series, and suffered a hairline fracture to his hock, putting his immediate racing future on hold.
Like his name suggests, Ricci flew out of the boxes, and carving through the first section in 7.68s, the race was over not long after it had begun. But this really wasn’t about winning, it was about how well he could return from injury.
While some may have expected after a long, 81-day lay-off, that Flying Ricciardo would tire, he didn’t appear to at all and would post 6.67s for the run home.
All eyes were firmly fixed on the semaphore board as Flying Ricciardo sailed past the line six lengths in front of his rivals. The time stood still at 24.63s. That’s fast.
It was faster than the 24.82s Flying Ricciardo ran at his only previous Maitland appearance, and was only a length outside the track record of the Darryl Thomas-trained La Grant Quality, who posted 24.56s back in October 2019.
The only other dog to have gone quicker over the 450m at Maitland was former track record holder Pindari Express who ran 24.59s back in July, 2018.
“I was a bit nervous tonight,” trainer Kristy Sultana said. “I haven’t been nervous for him for a little while but it was bit nerve-wracking this one.
“I’m just relieved. He was probably a run short anyway, so we were happy he ran a time, and he was strong at the finish.
“He did everything right. His weight was little bit up too, so he wasn’t just 100 percent, so we were really happy with the run and the time. Another run under his belt and he probably would have broken the record, but it doesn’t matter as long as he got around OK. He’s asleep now on our way home. He’s buggered.”
For what it’s worth, the win was number 20 of his career at just start 24, and that $1,700 prizemoney boosted his earnings to $226,290.
As for what comes next, Kristy said she will assess that over the next few days.
“There’s no firm plans yet,” she said. “We’ll just wait and see how he is over the next couple of days and then we will give him another run somewhere and try and build him up to the 500m and then hopefully go to the (Golden) Easter Egg (heats on March 20) if he’s right for it.”
