Connections hoping patience pays off with Reprisal at Tamworth
Neil Evans
A nine-week break and patience while waiting for a drier surface will pay dividends for a local five-year-old when he resumes his feature-length Tamworth meeting on Monday.
Reprisal, a sparingly raced son of multiple group 1 winner Trapeze Artist from the Troy O’Neile stable, overcomes a benchmark of 58 over 1000m to cap off a very competitive and open meeting.
The horse, who started his career in Victoria before being transferred to the New England region of NSW, has not raced since racing home to miss by a long neck in similar company in early April.
As with the Retaliation model, it emerges nice and fresh at home again with a very suitable sprint.
Heading into one of the busiest times of the year, track officials will be reveling in the fresh air and the surface is expected to be around 5 degrees, if not harsher, at the start of the meeting.
And that sounds good to many hookups who spend plenty of time avoiding the heavy tracks; None more so than the team behind Reprisal.
Both of his wins so far have come early in the build-up, and although he has not had a public trial for this return, the stable has shown its hand by booking top jockey Aaron Bullock to ride.
In one of several open stakes races on the programme, Reprisal opened nearly $6 behind early favorite Iknowyou ($4.50) from the Cavanough stable at Scone.
Reprisal’s first win could cap off a big day for Bullock. He has a strong ride book, starting with the promising mare Oakfield Nevada for the Kris Lees stable at the opening plate over a mile, before jumping on to the well-intentioned three-year-old Ordinary Angel for the Todd Howlett yard in a Maiden Hcp over 1200m.
Provided by Racing NSW.
