Career highlight for Tony Cruz with five winners ranging from old stagers to new blood

Blazing Speed and Peniaphobia may have been the proven commodities, but Fionesay, Full Glory and Beauty Love all look to have smart futures after winning on Sunday

Dual feature wins and a career-best five-timer made it a day to remember for Tony Cruz yesterday but it was all about the future when raw talent Fionesay did everything wrong but still scored in Class Three.

As well as Blazing Speed’s Group One success and Peniaphobia’s return to form when winning a Group Three, Cruz produced a form turnaround with Beauty Love and even bagged a stable quinella when Full Glory beat General Sherman over 1,800m.

Jockey Neil Callan was then forced to earn every cent of his riding fee on Fionesay as the three-year-old seemed intent on throwing away victory in a race named after Cruz’s former champion California Memory.

“I had to work overtime to get him around the turn and then keep him going,” Callan said of the monster gelding.

Fionesay, who was listed as weighing a whopping 1,243 pounds for yesterday’s race, had competed four times on right-handed tracks in Australia and started twice for Cruz, but clearly still has plenty to learn.

“He is a big baby, just really dopey,” said Callan, who was forced to slap the son of Rothesay on the shoulder around the bend to stop him from hanging. “Then when he straightened he changed his legs and lost his balance. Once he got going again he was fine – he just doesn’t know how to race.”

“Given all of that, you would think he would be a nice horse next season, once he works out where to put his feet. He has done that on raw ability and there is plenty of scope there.”

 

Source: http://racing.scmp.com/freeservice/news/news20160523b.asp