It will take a modern weight-carrying record for Justaskme to win Saturday’s Group 3 126th Winter Cup (1600m) at Riccarton but trainer Allan Sharrock reckons he can.
You have to go back nearly 50 years to find the last winner of the Winter Cup to carry more than 60kg: Chifnal Chief, who carried 62.5kg to victory in 1976 under jockey Kevin Cullen.
No Excuse Needed eight-year-old Justaskme will carry 61kg and the weight of expectation as favourite, but Sharrock refuses to underestimate what his charge is capable of.
“With 61 kilos, he’ll have to make a bit of history. Nashville won with 60 (in 2017) but you’d have to go back a long, long time to find one that’s carried more than that,” Sharrock said.
Taranaki galloper Justaskme heads down to Riccarton in career-best form, having won three of his last four starts, most recently sweeping home from a seemingly hopeless position to win last month’s Listed Opunake Cup (1400m) at New Plymouth.
“It was nothing short of sensational. His effort was huge and he’s come through it super,” Sharrock said.
“He’s glided through it but when you race at home, while his performance was big, there’s no travelling involved and it’s not as arduous for them.”
Sharrock bred Justaskme and races him with his brother Bruce, the chief executive of New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing, and Tony Kemp, a former New Zealand rugby league international and current breakfast show host on SENZ Radio. All three will be on track for the race.
“We’re going to have a good time down there and we’re looking forward to that, but it would be the icing on the cake if he could win,” Sharrock said.
“It would be great to pull it off but we know it’s a big ask with 61 kilos. I keep looking at the quality of the lightweight horses but then ask myself ‘would 1kg more have beaten him in the Opunake Cup?’ And I keep coming up with ‘probably not’.
“They’re all there to knock him off with 53 kilos on their backs but they’ve still got to beat him and hopefully that won’t be an easy task.
“Over a mile, he won’t tail off. On a heavy track, he might be in the back half of the field but there’s no point giving them a five-length head start.
“The Opunake Cup was run fiercely, which played right into his hands, but over 1600m down a big straight at Riccarton, that suits him a fair bit better than it did at New Plymouth.”
Justaskme began the long trip from New Plymouth to Riccarton at 8am on Wednesday, staying overnight at Blenheim, where he had a canter at the Waterlea racecourse on Thursday morning before completing the journey to Christchurch that afternoon.
Sharrock is flying to Christchurch on Thursday evening and will assess his horse’s condition on Friday morning before deciding on any further exercise.
“He galloped super on Tuesday with Emma (Davies, Sharrock’s partner) on him. He’s a good-doing horse and if he’s travelled well, I might actually run him up again in the morning, just a nice half-mile to clean him out,” he said.
“He’s not in till race nine on Saturday and it won’t be for the faint-hearted, so I’ve got to make sure he’s right. He’s a bit like Kempy – he travels well and eats everything put in front of him.”
Sharrock produced Go Thenaki and Don’t Ya Lovett for successive wins in the Winter Cup in 2004 and 2005 and would love to complete the treble with Justaskme.
“They probably had similar ability but neither of them won close to half a million dollars like this bloke. If he wins this, he tops $500,000, which is pretty good for a winter handicapper,” he said.
While Sharrock doesn’t have a jumper for the Grand National carnival, he hinted that jumping could yet be in Justaskme’s future.
In the interim though, Sharrock would love to give him the chance to improve on his second placing in last year’s Group 1 Livamol Classic (2040m) at Hastings on October 14.
“If the rain is about, he’ll go to the middle day at Hastings and then on to the Livamol like last year, but probably retirement is imminent after that because there’s only one wet-track weight-for-age race at Wanganui and he’s got too much weight in handicaps,” Sharrock said.
“The only other option is sending him to Paddy Payne in Australia to be a jumper. It’s sad but that’s just the way it is when they become good horses but are off-track horses, there aren’t any weight-for-age races for them.
“He jumps really well. He’s jumped for a couple of years and he’s very nifty. I haven’t spoken to Patrick about it but he does a good job and it will just be whether we want to keep a nice horse like him going or not.”
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