After an unlucky first two days of Christchurch Cup and Show Week, local trainer Michael Pitman decided a wardrobe change was in order to try and turn around the fortunes of the team that he and son Matthew had engaged on the final day at Riccarton.
The Pitman partnership are normally synonymous with success during the traditional spring carnival on their home patch but had yet to trouble the scorer this year.
That changed early in the piece on Saturday as promising intermediate stayer Star Ballot (NZ) (Tarzino), in the hands of Daniel Stackhouse, put in a desperate lunge at the winning post to nose out Invincibeel (NZ) (Savabeel) in a rating 65 2000m contest and provide the Pitman’s with something to celebrate on the day.
Pitman senior was full of emotion as he explained the significance of the tie he was wearing at the meeting, one of his late son Jonny’s who took his own life nine years ago.
“This win is for a fantastic group of owners in the horse,” he said.
“Three years ago, I sent a message out to my owners we might want to buy a few and we got such an overwhelming response and this guy was one of them.
“I bought a new suit for this week and I shelved it yesterday so I’m back in the old suit.
“We have a wardrobe at home that my late son Jonny had and I rummaged through it and put on his lucky tie for the first time today and it worked.”
Pitman had been confident of a winning performance after the son of Tarzino had finished an unlucky third over 1600m a week earlier.
“He has backed up three weeks in a row and he was a certainty beaten on the first day,” he said.
“To back up and win over 2000m says something about the horse.
“I really liked him today and I said to Daniel that we can’t win if we stay on the fence, so surely you can find the right path here.”
Stackhouse followed those instructions to the letter as he weaved between runners in the home straight before launching an irresistible finish in the middle of the track to claim victory.
It was the third win in succession on the day for Stackhouse who had made the meeting his own in the early stages.
“This is a nice progressive horse who was unlucky the other day,” Stackhouse said.
“I was cursing myself with the position I found myself in and it took a good horse to get out of that and lucky I was on him.
“I wasn’t confident I had won but I knew my bloke was going pretty strong through the line.
“I wanted to get going on my bike earlier, but it didn’t work out, however the Pitmans and their team have done a fantastic job with him.”
Star Ballot was a $45,000 purchase for Pitman from the Westbury Stud draft during the 2020 New Zealand Bloodstock Ready To Run Sale of Two-year-Olds at Karaka.
Tarzino will be represented by 10 individuals during the 2022 edition of the Sale that runs over two days at Karaka on 16 & 17 November.
Unfortunately, the third race was the last run on the day at Riccarton, with the meeting abandoned after the Lily Sutherland-ridden Harmonious was found to have slipped badly rounding the home turn.
The remaining nine races have been rescheduled by New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing to a new meeting at the venue on Monday 14 November.
Video: Star Ballot gets up in the nick of time at Riccarton
