Moir Stakes 2016: Don’t write off old boy Buffering in that Moonee Valley sprint that he adores

BATTERED, bruised and bleeding after his uncharacteristic last to Chautauqua in Hong Kong in May, it looked as if Buffering had run his last race.

DARYL TIMMS

3 min read

September 26, 2016 - 4:00PM

Buffering scores easily in the Magic Millions Sprint for Damian Browne in January. Picture: Grant Peters, Trackside Photography

BATTERED, bruised and bleeding after his uncharacteristic last to Chautauqua in Hong Kong in May, it looked as if Buffering had run his last race.

Robert Heathcote, who trains the veteran, admits it feels almost like a lifetime since the Chairman’s Sprint Prize at Sha Tin, where Chautauqua stormed home to stake his claim to be the world’s best sprinter.

The two superstar sprinters will again face off in Friday night’s Group 1 Moir Stakes (1000m) at Moonee Valley, a race Buffering has won three times, including last year, and finished second in once.

Now a nine-year-old, Buffering pulled up lame after the Chairman’s Sprint and a post-race endoscopic revealed a substantial amount of blood in the horse’s trachea.

Heathcote wondered whether it was all over for Brisbane’s iron horse who at his previous start had won the Group 1 Al Quoz Sprint in Dubai to make it 20 career wins and $7.2 million in prizemoney.

Buffering’s comeback has staggered Heathcote, who has continually been amazed by the horse’s feats during his 53 races, starting with a victory as a two-year-old at Doomben in March 2010.

“It is just an amazing return and he has come back seemingly as good as ever,” the trainer said.

“It’s incredible. The reality was that, yes, it could have been his last race in Hong Kong and he ran a bad race, but there were reasons behind it and he was lame and they did an endoscopy on him and found he’d had bled down in his engine room.

“And you think, well, that might be it.”

Heathcote gave Buffering a long break. He said the gelding was now as enthusiastic as ever and showed no signs of the problem he had in Hong Kong.

Heathcote has taken a lot from the comments of Buffering’s regular jockey Damian Browne, who doesn’t sugar-coat anything, especially his assessment of horses.

No one had to say anything when Buffering went close to the 1050m course record in a Doomben barrier trial this month. He ran 59.58sec, 0.39sec outside the record.

“Even when he ran just outside of the record, Browney said he still wasn’t quite there and knocked up a little bit,” Heathcote said.

“If he had have given him a slap, he would have run a track record in a barrier trial.”

Buffering, who was due to fly into Melbourne on Monday night, is the perfect horse for backmarker Chautauqua to race against because Heathcote said the Hawkes stable knew it would always be a genuinely run race.

Queensland's Buffering in the Doomben trial where he set the track alight. Picture: Darren England

He said all riders knew if they took on Buffering in a speed battle upfront, they were not going to run in the money.

“But they can also get Buffering beat,” Heathcote said.

“We are coming to Moonee Valley with a horse that has got a few things in his favour, but I take a lot of heart out of what older Takeover Target did.

“He won a Group 1 when he was nine and raced at Royal Ascot when he was 10 and he was a freak, and so too is Buffering.

Buffering with strapper Mel Sharpe. Picture: Darren England.

“I look at this horse every day and marvel at him. He is just an unbelievable racehorse and his enthusiasm levels are as high as they’ve been in the last three or four years.”

Heathcote said besides plenty of tender loving care, a reason for Buffering’s longevity is that he has been sparingly raced since he was six.

Buffering already has a bar named in his honour at Eagle Farm. Heathcote said it would be fitting if there were to be a Buffering Bar at the Valley, should the gelding win a fourth Moir.

He said Chautauqua deserved to be called the world’s best sprinter but Buffering was perhaps the world’s toughest racehorse.