Three’s The Charm for Northern Gaze
Three was the magic number on Friday at Bunbury for Northern Gaze and Kyle Symington, with the horse bringing up his third win in a row, giving Symington the first leg of his winning treble on the day. Northern Gaze has been racing in a purple patch of form of late, and Friday was no exception, with the gelding recording his fourth career victory for the Rogers family in race three on the card.
Trainer Corey Rogers was confident the three-year-old could get the job done again and with punters sharing his view, the youngster started at $1.24 odds and was able to lead all the way from barrier three over the 1609m sprint trip, recording a mile rate of 1:55:2.
“He (Northern Gaze) has really excited us recently and is slowly turning into a nice horse.”
The Byford based trainer recently sold his other racehorse Comnharry due to time constraints and work commitments, and with his family’s horses on an extended spell, Roger’s is hoping that Northern Gaze can continue to impress.
“Next up we will look to go back up to open three-year-old grade and tackle the 3YO Pearl heats for colts and geldings, and fingers crossed he has closed the gap a little to be competitive.”
“At least we are going back to open grade in career best form this time, so will be interesting to see how he measures up.”
“I don’t have the time to work more than one horse for the foreseeable future. I am keeping Northern Gaze in work as my hobby so to speak as I love the horses and it’s my passion but need to work to pay the bills unfortunately.” Rogers said.
It was a great day out for Symington and with a full book of drives on the nine-race card, Kyle walked away with a driving treble on the day. Symington opened the meeting with a winning drive on board the Aiden De Campo trained Feeling Empathy, with the two-year-old filly recording her first win at just her third start in a race. With De Campo’s stable represented by three of the six runners, it was fitting that he managed the race trifecta, with his runners all finishing within 1.6m of each other in a mile rate of 2:02:2.
“Young Kyle Symington is building a nice connection with the horse too and driving very well across the board at the moment.” Rogers said.
The final leg of his driving treble came up in race five when he was on board the $1.65 favourite Atomic Feel for Brad Chinnery. Bringing up his second win in just his short seven start career, the four-year-old won with ease, leading all the way and running away from the rest of the field to claim top prize by 19.4m in 1:58:6 over the 2100m trip.
The feature of the day, the $10,250 Diggers Cup, went the way of Auckland Jet for local trainer Vanessa Brockman who settled behind the leader over the 2100m journey, claiming the win by 2.4m in a mile rate of 1:59:3, giving Deni Roberts the last of winning treble on the day.
Driving honours were shared between Kyle Symington and Deni Roberts who both left the Bunbury meeting with three driving wins on the day and a training double going the way of Aiden De Campo at the scheduled daytime meeting down at Donaldson Park on Friday, April 22.
Ashleigh Paikos