It was thumbs up for Cranbourne trainer Robbie Griffiths and jockey Peter Mertens after they combined to win the last race on the card with Count To Zero on Saturday.By Brad Kingsbury
ROBBIE Griffiths and success have gone hand in hand over recent Melbourne Spring Racing Carnivals and luck has had little to do with it.
Griffiths has become Cranbourne’s leading big-occasion trainer and a more loyal advocate of the district’s racing industry you will not find.
He has set horses specifically for big-purse races over the week-long carnival in the past few years and combined with a small group of equally as loyal owners and riders to down some of the biggest name stables and gallopers to keep Cranbourne in the headlines when the reviews are written.
“We try to always have at least one runner over the carnival,” he said.
“I mean this is the pinnacle of racing and this is where you get to show your stuff. If you can match it with the top players here you have to be comfortable with what you’re doing.”
It is no easy feat and a quick look at the trainers and gallopers that do not make the grade over the big week at Flemington confirms Griffiths’ opinion that any success is a major achievement.
“I first started coming to the spring carnival years ago, first as a jockey, then a foreman and now a trainer.
“You soon realise that it is just so hard to win any race in that week. Just to be competitive in a race is a triumph because the competition is always incredibly tough,” he said.
Griffiths set three of his stable’s better gallopers for this year’s spring riches and has already paid the bills when fellow Cranbourne horseman Peter Mertens saw Count To Zero salute in the final race on Saturday’s Victoria Derby program.
“It was set for this race for a long time,” he said.
“At this level there’s always seven or eight chances and you’re never a good thing, but we had the horse spot-on and he’d had a great prep. He needed all the straight to find the line, but he got there in the end.
“He will probably run in two weeks at Sandown in the 1400-metre race on Classic Day now.”
Griffiths also saddled his unlucky sprinter Cocinero in the Group 2 Salinger Stakes, while Cancanelle will run in the Hilton on the Park race during Emirates Stakes day this Saturday.
