CHECKING IF THIS STILL WORKS

CHECKING CHECKING CHECKING

LETHAL JONES DERBY BOUND

Jason Whiting appears to have spotted his mum in the crowd as he reaches the line on LETHAL JONES at Ascot on Saturday. At least the horse is watching where he is going!!

Part owner Greg Dick looks proud as punch as he holds the winners trophy after the post race presentation following the win of LETHAL JONES in the Melvista Hcp on the weekend. It was the first "Black Type" victory for co-trainer Dion Luciani who is hoping to add a Derby win to his resume in the coming weeks. 

All photo's courtesy Hollands Photographics. For more photo's, go to  http://www.hollandsracetrackphotos.com/

Exciting young staying horse LETHAL JONES, has come through his first serious staying test in flying colours and we are looking forward to the him taking his place in the upcoming W.A.Derby in a fortnights time. There are always behind the scene stories when a horse wins any race and there is nothing different about the win of LETHAL JONES.

Jason Whiting who rode the horse on Saturday had the choice a few weeks ago between some exciting two and three year olds moving towards the Karrakatta Plate and the Derby which can be an enviable position to be in however if you make the wrong choice, it can be a bitter pill to swallow. Especially if the "reject" goes on and performs better than the selected ride. That is the risk that any rider takes and at the end of the day they have to live and die by the decisions they make. When Jason had the choice to ride either LETHAL JONES or ROHAN in the J.C.Roberts Quality at their previous starts, I was keen for Jason to ride our horse however I was not confident which way he would go. He chose to stick with the stable and I could see the disappointment in his face when the horse he got off won the race and our horse came in five lengths further back.

Move forward two weeks and the situation was reversed when LETHAL JONES showed why the stable has such a high opinion of his staying ability, when the horse unleashed a mighty finishing effort to get up and win the final lead up to the Derby putting a smile back on the dial of "the fish."  I have to say that at the half way point of the race when Jason had LETHAL JONES back in second last position and off the bridle, I was starting to question whether we may have made a huge mistake in our assessment of the horses ability. To their credit, both horse and rider gained confidence in each other the further they went making it a huge result for the stable and the owners in general.

Whilst only one part owner, Greg Dick, was present at the races on Saturday, both Colin Crossley and Colin Hounsell, will travel down and across from Darwin and Airlie Beach for the "grand final" in a couple of weeks. I' looking forward to catching up with both guys as I have a bit of construction work to do down on my farm the following week so bring your work clobber boys!

LETHAL MAY BE A SECRET WEAPON

LETHAL JONES shown winning at Bunbury recently may prove to be a big improver as the distances of his races get longer  over the next few weeks.

The lightly raced three year old has shown enough ability in track work to suggest that staying is his forte and the few times we have put some distance into his races, his performances have improved out of sight. His half brother CAMPOBELLO was at his best when he got up to 2200m and LETHAL JONES appears to be heading in the same direction.

Although he is still a bit of an "ugly duckling" with quite a loose action and a wayward mind, I can see nothing but improvement from this horse over the next few preparations. Hopefully he improves quickly enough to warrant him taking his place in the 2012 W.A. DERBY which will be run in mid April.