Wintergarden Stakes 2016: Hugh Bowman upbeat about Cellarman’s prospects of claiming decent stakes race victory
CHRIS Waller and Hugh Bowman both believe Cellarman can win a nice stakes race in the spring after the colt survived a protest to win at Eagle Farm.
CHRIS Waller and Hugh Bowman both believe Cellarman can win a nice stakes race in the spring after the immature colt survived a protest to win the Listed Wintergarden Stakes (1400m) at Eagle Farm.
Second placegetter Brulee’s jockey Jim Byrne lodged a protest against the winner, alleging interference between the 300m and 250m mark.
Byrne argued Cellarman’s jockey Bowman shifted in on to Brulee at a vital stage in the race and not only took his horse’s run but also made him stop riding and alter course.
“It’s no doubt it cost my filly the race,” Byrne argued.
Brulee’s trainer Peter Robl insisted the interference cost his horse more than the half-neck margin at the finish but Bowman and trainer Waller stressed that Cellarman was holding the second placegetter over the concluding stages.
Stewards felt Bowman’s actions did inconvenience Brulee but said it wasn’t enough to change the result.
The victory was Cellarman’s first win in four starts but champion jockey Bowman feels it won’t be his last.
“If he can run a mile, which I can see no reason why he won’t, he is up to winning a stakes race in the spring,” Bowman said.
“He really relished the strongly run 1400m today.”
Waller took a line through Group 1 winner Shellscrape to suggest Cellarman can be a major player in the spring.
“Shellscrape won a race like this up here (in 2009) and then came out and won the (Group 2) Roman Consul in Sydney in the spring and it’s a stepping stone to bigger things,” Waller said.
“He is a very promising horse and I commented pre-race on how relaxed he was and that was the whole idea about coming up here and the trip way will hopefully help him mature.
“He was competitive at home without winning but he is going to keep improving and he is a nice big three-year-old type.”
Star Thoroughbreds’ founder Denise Martin said Cellarman’s win marked the syndication company’s first stakes winner with Waller.
“We’ve had Saturday winners for the past three weekends and now this is the first stakeswinner,” Martin said.
“We’re stoked and we found this horse in Melbourne and I thought he represented a lovely, quality colt.”
Waller predicted yesterday’s win to be the first of many stakes wins with Star Thoroughbreds.
“Denise is a lovely lady to train horses for and those stars (on Star Thoroughbreds’ silks) have five or six points on them because that’s the service Denise provides,” he said.
Earlier, patience paid off for trainer Kelly Doughty when consistent galloper Flamboyer ran his rivals ragged in the Class 6 Plate (1400m).
“It’s been six weeks since he ran last and we just decided we had to wait for the carnival horses to basically leave and then we knew we would be ready to go again,” she said.
“There were some races there that we could have run him in but we didn’t want to just watch him go around and run a nice sixth or seventh. “
Hammersley finally gets his reward
BRIAN Smith will consider backing up Feltre in Saturday’s Caloundra Cup after he turned his fortunes around to claim Listed success at Eagle Farm.
Smith was weighing up on Tuesday whether to run Feltre in 1830m race or the Tattersall’s Cup and pulled the right rein when Feltre landing a good betting move ($17-$10).
“We might look at the Caloundra Cup but I would probably prefer to run him next over 2200m,” Smith said.
“I’ve only had him a few starts and he has just drawn bad gates and had wide runs but he showed what he was made of today.
“Today was D-day from the good draw and Paul (Hammersley) put him there and I loved the way he really kicked.
“He should get further and we might even look at a race like the Grafton Cup next month.”
The victory was a nice consolation prize for jockey Paul Hammersley, who missed out on the winning Queensland Derby ride on Eagle Way when replaced by Tommy Berry.
“That’s just part of racing and it was disappointing but I wasn’t upset about it and it’s just good to get a winner at the new Eagle Farm and hopefully I can build a bit of momentum from it,” he said.
The triumph gave Feltre his first stakes victory and comes after he was narrowly beaten in the $1 million Magic Millions Trophy (1800m) in January.
Originally published as Wintergarden Stakes 2016: Hugh Bowman upbeat about Cellarman’s prospects of claiming decent stakes race victory