The silks belonging to an Australian racing great have delivered a win in Caulfield’s $1 million feature.
Big Wigs beat the wide gate by flying down the outside rail in the Caulfield straight to annex the Showdown (1200m) on Saturday.
The colt under Phillip Stokes wore the colours etched in history by Makybe Diva, triple Melbourne Cup hero who perished from colic two weeks ago.
With Lachlan Neindorf riding, Big Wigs ($3.70) withstood the battling $3.10 top pick Miss Chanel to triumph by a half-head, Knurl ($10) some 5-¼ lengths back in third.
Miss Chanel’s pilot Jordan Childs viewed the head-on before weights were made official.
Tommy Stokes, proxy for his father Phillip, praised the Santic colours’ achievement as brilliant.
Phillip Stokes started training in South Australia, home to Santic, the famed Port Lincoln tuna catcher.
“It means a lot to have these colours aboard,” Tommy Stokes said.
“Mr Santic is here on course today and he’s brought a whole heap of owners with him. It’s a massive prize money race and it’s a race we targeted for a fairly long time. He’s been to Adelaide, he’s come back, we thought he’d be winning at Ballarat, but he ran into a smart one, but he’s been able to hold himself nicely here and Lachie summed it up perfectly.”
Neindorf approached the pre-race area with a tactic despite the poor draw.
“I think we were all a bit worried when the barrier draw came out, but it was a blessing in disguise in the end because we had all the three main dangers drawn inside of us,” Neindorf said.
“I wasn’t sure where they were going to be but I was confident that I would end up on the back of one of them and I was confident that my horse had a good turn of foot and the extra rise in distance was going to suit him that little bit more. To be honest, I probably still let him go a little bit early. I probably could have straightened up and held onto him for an extra 50 metres before putting him through his gears because, jeez, he got there fast, but full credit to the runner-up, it was tough. I was really worried the last 50 (metres) that she was going to come back and almost get me on the line again.”
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