Skylimit did what big sister and Golden Slipper winner Overreach couldn’t – he made the perfect start to his career with a tenacious debut victory.
But it didn’t come without some anxious moments.
Heavily supported from $2 to start a $1.65 favourite, the Gai Waterhouse-trained colt took up the running in Wednesday’s Schweppes Plate at Canterbury but quickly found himself under siege from several challengers in the straight.
Under hard riding from Tommy Berry, the three-year-old dug deep when it mattered most and was drawing away from his rivals again on the line to score a long neck win over Avonaco.
Like Overreach, the colt is raced by prominent owner and breeder George Altomonte who admitted to feeling a few nerves when the field turned for home.
“Not coming here, but I did when he turned the corner down there and he started to linger,” Altomonte said.
“We’ll keep racing, naturally he’ll go up in class, and I think he’s definitely a Saturday horse. I think he’s a black-type horse.”
Skylimit’s win was a timely change of fortune for Altomonte who finally got Overreach back to the track in Melbourne this spring, only for her to fracture a tibia during her third placing in the Schillaci Stakes.
However, there are no plans to retire the mare yet and she will return to racing once she’s recovered.
Skylimit gave Tommy Berry a race-to-race double after he won on the Bart and James Cummings-trained Tree Of Jesse.
Berry said the Tulloch Lodge colt didn’t show a lot of race sense but overcame his inexperience with raw ability.
“I changed the stick over a few times, just to get his mind on the job, and it seemed to work. I think he will be better once he gets over a bit further,” Berry said.
“With the blinkers the first time he might not have seen them coming and waited until they got right next to him but, in saying that, I wouldn’t take the blinkers off either.”
The meeting was interrupted by an electrical storm which swept across the track after the sixth race and delayed the final event by almost an hour-and-a-half.
Sam Clipperton almost got an early leave pass when his mount in the seventh race, Bridge Of Sighs, was a late scratching due to a track downgrade but alas had to wait around for stewards to conclude a careless riding inquiry stemming from the second race.
Clipperton, who pleaded not guilty, was suspended for five meetings for shifting in aboard runner-up Wedding over the concluding stages.
The penalty is due to start on Friday week ruling him out of the Villiers Stakes mount on Monton and Inglis Nursery ride on Let’s Make It Rain pending the outcome of any appeal.
Article from justhorseracing.com.au
