A suggestion made by Rachel King is working wonders for Warwick Farm trainer Bjorn Baker.
Baker saddled up imported French Group 2 winner Baby Rider to score his first Australian win in the Listed Max Brenner Santa Cup (2000m) at Royal Randwick on Saturday.
Before Saturday’s victory, Baby Rider had struggled to recapture the form that landed the son of Gleneagles the group 2 Prix Greffulhe over 2000m at Saint-Cloud in France in 2021.
King, who had been apprenticed to trainer Gai Waterhouse, suggested to Baker in recent months that he should introduce hurdles into his training regime to stimulate underperforming imports and, since then, a handful of horses, including Baby Rider, have turned it around.
“Jumping the horses is something Gai does a lot,” King said. “Father’s Day was the horse that triggered me to suggest it to Bjorn because he was a horse that I knew had the ability but we weren’t getting it out of him. The European horses are used to walking around for an hour, galloping through the woods, doing all sorts of different stuff rather than galloping around a track every day and some don’t adapt. It worked with Father’s Day so we gave it a go with Baby Rider and it’s worked with him as well. We also put Overpass over some logs before he went Perth last week and won the Winterbottom.”
King also spend hours reviewing replays of Baby Rider’s French career to identify other factors that could result in improvement and subsequently the six-year-old gelding raced in a crossover noseband for the first time since making the trip to Australia.
“We’ve been changing things around with him and he finally relaxed today,” she said.
“I watched all his races back in France and he’s got quite a soft mouth so we changed the gear up on him and it all seems to have done the job. That’s the first time he’s dropped the bridle and given himself a chance to keep going. It’s great that he showed us what he can do.”
The race was run at a solid clip with $2.45 favourite I’mintowin rolling along before Baby Rider ($21) took over as they swung for home and he was strong all the way to the line to win by three-quarters of a length.
“He never looked in doubt today, I wish I had more on him,” Baker said. “Until now he hadn’t delivered for us, but his work on Tuesday was exceptional. He was better last time and he was better again today. Rachel’s done a lot of work with him and we seem to have him heading in the right direction now. Hopefully, he’ll go on with it and we’ll probably head to the Summer Cup with him now on Boxing Day.”
The above is an excerpt from Clinton Payne’s article from Saturday’s edition of The Sydney Morning Herald.
