Jumps master’s winning touch

By Stuart Teather
ROBBIE Laing has done it again.
The master jumps trainer claimed another big race on Sunday, winning the $200,000 Grand National Hurdle at Sandown with eight-year-old gelding Desert Master.
With Adam Trinder on board, Desert Master fought off a persistent Juan Carlos to pull away over the final stages, creating a memorable win.
Laing said after the race he was confident his horse could take the race, following some good form in the $100,000 Lachal Hurdle two weeks earlier. “We were pretty confident. He was narrowly beaten into second the other day after two months away from hurdles and he raced a bit fresh,” he said.
Laing’s win comes after his recent success with Mazzacano in the Australian Steeplechase at Sandown and Sir Pentire in the Grand Annual Steeplechase at Warrnambool.
At the height of his flat racing career in the spring of 2007, Desert Master picked up third-placings in the Geelong Cup and Saab Quality.
In 2008 he was reborn as a jumps racer, but it was not until May 2009 when he won the Galleywood at Warrnambool that he started to make a name for himself. Laing was not far off claiming the ultimate double in jumps racing on Sunday, going within a whisker of collecting the Grand National Steeplechase as well, with Sir Pentire.
But the Grand Annual winner could not match training duo Fran Houlahan and Brian Johnstone’s Pentiffic, who was too good for the rest of the field, powering away at the 800-metre mark to claim a five-length win ahead of Sir Pentire, with Mt Townsend in third. Pentiffic’s jockey, Trent Wells, said the horse could be on its way to Japan to contest the world’s richest jumps race, the Nakayama Grand Jump.
Houlahan had another reason to celebrate this week, with Pentiffic also claiming the Champion Jumper category in the Australian Racehorse of the Year awards.