Black And Bent Cruises Home Again
- Saturday, 05 June 2010 05:59
The Robert Smerdon-trained Black And Bent continued on his winning way with an easy victory in heat two of the Banjo Paterson Series at Flemington.
The rising five-year-old has successfully been mixing hurdling and flat racing and made it five straight wins and six wins from his last seven starts in the $100,000 2500m event.
Black And Bent ($4.80 fav) completed a hat-trick on the flat on Saturday since his win in the Galleywood Hurdle (3200m) at Warrnambool on May 5.
Smerdon paid tribute to part-owner Mike Symons who does all the programming of the Black Hawk gelding.
Next for Black And Bent is the $100,000 Australian Hurdle (3400m) at Sandown on June 19 while the $150,000 Banjo Paterson Series Final (2500m) at Flemington on July 10 must also come under serious consideration.
Smerdon said that a couple of runs back Symons had even considered the Group Two Brisbane Cup (2400m) at Eagle Farm next Saturday for Black And Bent.
Ridden by Glen Boss, Black And Bent was travelling beautifully in the first three throughout and went on to score a comfortable 1-3/4 length win over Mt Gambier Cup winner Montjeu Madame ($10) with the winner's stablemate Come On Cugat ($6.50) a short head away third.
"Today was the toughest competition he's taken on, but he's been making big steps and surprising everyone all the way through I guess," Smerdon said.
"Glen (Boss) expressed some concerns about the track (a dead 5). He said it was heavy underfoot and he didn't think you'd be able to make much ground so I left it to him to ride him how he felt."
Boss, who was having his first ride on Black And Bent, described him as a beautiful horse to ride.
"He's so relaxed and very confident about what he's doing and he gave me a beautiful ride in the race. He jumped well, put himself into the race and switched off," he said.
"When Come On Cugat came around me at about the 1400 metres he got on the bridle a little bit but as soon as I asked him to he switched off again and he really towed me, from that point he was the winner.
"It was really a matter of when I was going to go."
Picture: Fiona Tomlin
