Trainer Chris Anderson turns to feng shui for a lucky break

Trainer Chris Anderson is hoping a feng shui tip from a close confidant of the late Dato Tan Chin Nam can turn his stable’s fortunes around after a frustrating run of near-misses.

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Soon after Chris Anderson watched Boomtown Lass become his third runner in the space of seven days to be on the wrong end of a photo in a feature race, he received a text message urging him to embrace one element of the Chinese art of feng shui.

The text message was from Duncan Ramage, the close confidant of the late Dato Tan Chin Nam, whose Think Big Stud’s colours adorn a number of Anderson-trained horses.

“Duncan sent me this message simply saying ‘go and clean your mirrors’. Apparently Dato Tan Chin Nam was an enormous believer in it,” Anderson said.

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Trainer Chris Anderson hopes his luck turns at Eagle Farm.

Chin Nam once brought out a feng shui master to Australia when he was having trouble with a project. In feng shui, a blurred image in the mirror is a blurred image of yourself, so it is imperative they be kept clean.

“I swear to God, I went straight back to the stables and polished every single mirror in the stable,” Anderson said.

Boomtown Lass followed Plutocrat earlier in the day and the Think Big-raced horse Ballistic Boy in the Group 3 Gunsynd a week before as narrow defeats for Anderson-trained horses.

“For my sake it was lucky the pubs weren’t open last weekend because I would have had one hell of a hangover,” Anderson said.

“I walked away thinking surely this has not happened again. We’re talking about the width of a piece of paper. Not talking about a significant margin.

“It certainly hasn’t been fun, but I like to see things as a glass half full. Our hope with both horses last week was to get black type, so on that front we were over the moon.

“I’m really thrilled the way the horses are racing and bad gates have been costing me from unfortunately winning stakes races. The three horses I’ve had run second, have come out of awful gates.

The late Dato Tan Chin Nam was a big believer in feng shui.

“But our turn will come. We just have to be patient, whether it’s this week, next week or months to come. We’ve got some really nice horses in our stable, terrific owners and we can’t wait to see what’s ahead.”

Ballistic Boy has been marked favourite to turn the tables on Supergiant in Saturday’s Group 3 Rough Habit Plate. Like most, he’s on trial at the 2200m and his trainer is hopeful, rather than confident, of him seeing it out.

“He seems very well in the stable and from that point I couldn’t be happier, but the distance is the big question,” he said. “Regardless of what happens, we know we’ve got a really nice horse that’s only going to get better with time.”