A winning double with Pick Of The Litter and Our Time at Te Rapa brought up a special milestone for Peter Lock.
The Te Aroha-based trainer was sitting on 398 domestic victories prior to the Saturday meeting, and he edged closer to the 400 milestone when Pick Of The Litter (NZ) (Vadamos) produced a tough victory in the opener, the Dunstan Final Boxing Day 2400.
The Vadamos mare had been a winner over 2100m in November and stepped up creditably for fourth over the mile-and-a-half at Ellerslie, placing her among the favoured runners in the Rating 65 contest. A textbook ride from Kelly Myers had the mare sitting comfortably in the one-one throughout, and after looming up at the 250, she showed grit in the finish to hold out Verismo by a nose.
“It was her second run over 2400m and she’s hit the line very well,” Lock said. “It was a very good ride by Kelly, she had the run of the race, was presented at the right time and was lucky to outstay the other horse, which was coming quickly.
“I’m very proud of her, she stuck to her guns.”
Later on the card, stablemate Our Time (NZ) (Time Test) saluted the judge with some authority in the Nationwide Livestock Mile (1600m), bringing up Lock’s 400th winner in suitable fashion.
In the hands of Myers, the son of Time Test settled in midfield and despite showing his inexperience in stages down the straight, his talent prevailed taking the race comfortably by 1 – ¼ lengths.
“We’ve always held him in high regard,” Lock said.
“He was a bit unlucky in his first start, he got a wet track and didn’t handle it, then at Rotorua, he drew wide, was hampered and only was beaten a half-head by a very good horse of Pike’s (Amazing Fluke).
“He’s a half-brother to a very good horse I had called Faithful Feat who we had a lot of luck with, and I think this one is a very good horse in the making.”
A winner of the Gr.3 J Swap Sprint (1400m) in 2022, Faithful Feat was among Lock’s well-performed horses in over three decades of training, with Group One performer Hiflyer another that meant a lot to the Waikato horseman.
“Training Hiflyer was a very big privilege, I’d done a bit of work at Cambridge Stud for Patrick Hogan and the horse had a bit of a turned out foot, and as I’m a blacksmith by trade, Patrick thought he would be a nice horse for me to have to keep control of his foot,” Lock said.
“He gifted nine shares to nine of my loyal owners and we syndicated him out, and the rest was history. I think he had 25 starts for 10 wins and 10 placings and won around $350,000 in stakes. He was beaten a head by Melody Belle in the Tarzino, he was just a fantastic horse.
“The new Cambridge Stud with Jo and Brendan Lindsay have just given me his half-brother by Tarzino to train, so I’m very excited and happy about that.
“We’ve had a lot of nice horses over the years, we had a horse called Lockins back in the day who won the Winstone Guineas, I won the Northern Hurdles with Montezuma, and another horse called Strike Regal won 12 in one season.”
The double continued what has been a fruitful season for Lock’s stable thus far, winning 11 races from just 50 starters, highlighted by his promising sprinting mare Debit (NZ) (Darci Brahma), who won three from three through the spring.
“There’s a lot of hard work involved, I have great staff and you’ve got to have nice horses coming through,” he said.
“We moved a few of the older horses on last year and brought a lot of young ones in, which is always a rebuilding phase. We’ve got some lovely young horses around us at the moment that we haven’t tried yet, I’m really looking forward to them.
“My daughter does all of the social media and she’s extremely good at it, she heads away a lot to Australia for the yearling sales so it does die off a wee bit over that time, but when she is here, she does a great job.
“We use Prism a lot, it’s an Australian company that we’ve joined to communicate with the owners. All of my clients really love it, the videos and audio are great.
“There are exciting times ahead for us.”
