FOR Armidale owner-trainer Sandy McCormack, Seen Im’s half length victory in Saturday’s 2013 Best Employment Ltd Glen Innes Cup was the first bright piece of news for the week.
McCormack was all smiles in the swabbing shed after the impressive half-length victory.
“We’ve (she and husband, Wayne who co-owns the Cup winner) had a shocker of a week.
“We had a really sick horse although it’s all right now and then we had to have the family cat put down.
“But this makes up for all that.”
With the scratching of topweight Universal Belief, Rhodenite – with Terry Treichel aboard – became the new topweight and heavily supported favourite and went straight to the lead as the 10-horse field left the barrier.
As the field approached the turn, Rhodenite still enjoyed a comfortable advantage and Treichel looked to have plenty in hand.
Texas-trained Piper’s Point challenged strongly in the straight as locally-raised jockey Ben Looker made his move.
Piper’s Point got the better of Rhodenite and was just being hailed as the winner when Seen Im burst from the ruck under the vigorous riding of Raymond Stokes to nail a convincing victory.
Seen Im had a half length to spare from Piper’s Point with a further ¾ length to Rhodenite which battled on gamely. Jurassic Star was fourth.
The winner’s time of 1min 21.51secs set a new 1400m track and race standard, removing Alloy’s 2001 time from the record books.
Seen Im recorded his twelfth win from 81 starts but has a tally of 19 seconds to its credit, many of them very narrow defeats according to the trainer.
Amongst the dozen first placings is one at Eagle Farm which holds pride of place for its owners. Saturday’s cheque of $8800 took the gelding’s prize tally to just over $165,000.
“We knew he could do it,” McCormack said.
“This will probably be his last campaign.
“He’s nine years old now and we’d hate anything to happen to him – he’s been so good to us.”
Earlier in the program, the McCormacks’ Status King had its first run for nine months after returning from a failed showjumping career, finishing just behind the placegetters, giving the owners more reason to forget their bad week before the Cup.