WHILE the honours in Saturday night’s AG Hunter Cup belonged to a harness racing superstar, team Frisby’s Our Uncle Sam still reaffirmed his status as one of the best horses in Australia by placing second.
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The Chris Frisby Perthville-trained, Anthony Frisby driven gelding was only bettered in the Melton Park feature by the horse he had run second to in the Inter Dominion Grand Final – Tiger Tara.
Just like the Inter Dominion decider which had Group 1 status and a $500,000 purse, so too did the Hunter Cup and as such, it attracted a crack field.
Our Uncle Sam ($6.80) went from barrier one in the 2,760 metres contest and though crossed by $1.90 favourite Tiger Tara with Bathurst native Todd McCarthy in the gig, he travelled well in the trail.
When Tiger Tara lifted them tempo through a 27.2 third quarter Our Uncle Sam was the only runner who was able to respond.
Though Tiger Tara held a clear lead as he balanced at the top of the straight and went on to win by 14.5m in a 1:53.2 mile rate, Our Uncle Sam ran a big race to finish a clear second.
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“He went tremendous,” Anthony Frisby said. “I was super happy with him. Tiger Tara is a super, super horse over the longer distance and I think you’d have to have a superstar to catch him over that longer distance.
“Tiger beat us by about 14 metres, but we beat the rest by 13 metres, so I was super happy with that.”
After copping a string of tough wide and second row draws of late, Frisby said going from gate one certainly helped the cause. Our Uncle Sam has now earned just shy of $180,000 this season.
“He’s had to do it tough all his other runs, so it was good to get the one and let him have a bit of an easier run for once,” Frisby said.
“You are up against nice horses in those grades and it’s the first time that we’ve dipped him in the deep end in this sort of grade. It’s not like he’s had season after season in the big grade.
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“It’s pretty good to know that he can handle it. Someone said to us that we have probably got the second-best horse in Australasia at the moment, when you think about that’s a bloody big achievement.”
As for what the plans are now for the Sportswriter x Rooftop Fairy gelding, Frisby said it will depend on how Our Uncle Sam recovers from Saturday night.
“We will just see how he pulls up the next fortnight, if he’s not 100 percent he will go into the paddock for awhile. There’s no set plan … but if he’s right he’ll probably have another two runs,” he said. “We don’t want to over-race him, we want to hope we have a horse for the future too, not a two-minute horse sort of thing.”
