On what is one of the biggest days in Australian racing a $5,000 purchase from Inglis Sales, La Falaise hit the line locked together with Fascino and race caller Matt Hill declaring ‘it’s nearly a dead heat, photo’. He was spot on! As opposed to the overzealous graphics guy on Racing.com responsible for putting the result on the big screen, declaring Fascino the winner ahead of our filly, which didn’t give us much confidence. Henry Dwyer, trainer of La Falaise, was adamant that we didn’t lose, we may have dead heated but we didn’t lose. So the graphics went down and then the nervous wait began.
Timing in life is everything and one minute can flash before your eyes or it can take an eternity. On this minute at 1.18pm to 1.19pm it felt like 5 minutes. The judge finally declared it a dead-heat result and we all kind of stood there and looked at each before realising that we won! It was a funny feeling of not having that adenaline rush of crossing the line knowing you have won. Its the first time an RTD horse has dead heated and for it to come in a Group 2 on Cox Plate Day we were all a bit shocked. As we processed the result it was an amazing feeling and our bonny little filly has now a Group 2 on her resume and earns that valuable black type that we were chasing. The presentation ceremony was entertaining as we shared winning with other owners, trainers, jockey, trophies and winning owners bar. It was a different feeling of sharing winning with other participants, a nice feeling and understandably the MVRC only had one trophy and both parties shared the trophy in respective functions for the day.
La Falaise will now have a well earned break and Henry Dwyer has done an amazing job with her this preparation as we have some plans with her in the autumn to take on further black type fillies races. Special thanks go to Henry and the team for looking after her so well and also a big shout out to Ben Melham for his ride on her yesterday. He was cool when things got a bit tight coming around the turn but he got on the back of Fascino and he rode her out hands and heels to hit the line at the right time. Finally congratulations to all of her owners, there will be some sore heads this morning and we are happy to report that the trophy made it home safe and sound.
