Talented four-year-old Mr Mojo Risin’ (NZ) (Deep Field) has recently returned home after a successful stint in Melbourne, and he has wasted no time in making his mark on a New Zealand racetrack.
The Andrew Forsman-trained gelding mastered the heavy conditions at Otaki on Saturday to score an impressive victory in the Vets On Riverbank Handicap (1400m).
The Rating 75 event was the third win of a 15-start career for Mr Mojo Risin’, who placed in the Gr.2 Hawke’s Bay Guineas (1400m) and Listed Wanganui Guineas (1340m) as a three-year-old last season.
A victory at Avondale on Anzac Day last year was the final New Zealand appearance for 11 months for Mr Mojo Risin’, whose next eight starts were in Victoria and included a win at Moonee Valley in November, along with a third at Kyneton and fourths at Sandown and Geelong.
The son of Deep Field returned to New Zealand with a close fourth at Ellerslie on March 9, finishing 2.9 lengths behind the subsequent black-type performer Provence. Second-up at Otaki on Saturday, Mr Mojo Risin’ was back in the winning groove.
Mr Mojo Risin’ was a 59.5kg topweight for the $35,000 race, but apprentice jockey Triston Moodley’s 3kg claim reduced that impost to a more manageable 56.5kg. Moodley had his mount prominently positioned in fourth before surging past Lincoln Falls and Sir Sterling in the straight for an emphatic half-length victory.
“That was a nice performance to see second-up,” Forsman said. “He had a bit of weight relief today, which definitely helped him in those conditions. But he’d performed well in stakes company in testing ground before, so we were expecting him to get through it okay today and he did a very good job.”
Bred and raced by Jomara Bloodstock, Mr Mojo Risin’ has now had 15 starts for three wins, four placings and $146,644 in stakes.
“We don’t have any specific plans with him now,” Forsman said. “We brought him back home from Melbourne, where he’d been running well, but we just thought he wouldn’t be suited to having too many more runs on firm tracks. Those metropolitan tracks on Saturdays often don’t have a huge amount of give in the ground.
“But it’s good to get the win today, and we’ll get him home and take it from there.”
Forsman’s Otaki team on Saturday also included Sporting Chance (Dundeel), who finished a gallant third behind Testify Me in the Listed Hawke’s Bay Cup (2200m).
“He went well,” Forsman said. “He just got caught in the worst of the ground from his inside gate. There wasn’t much Wiremu (Pinn, jockey) could do about that. But I thought he was very brave down the straight.”
