Tom Sherry cursed Chad Schofield after the Everest and Golden Eagle-winning jockey lifted Formal Display to a narrow win over him and stablemate Hellsing in the $3 million Big Dance at Randwick.
Half an hour later, however, Sherry felt for his fellow hoop – but was gladly accepting his own richest race win after a stunning stewards’ decision from a protest fired in by fourth-placed Gringotts handed the victory to Hellsing.
Gringotts’ rider Nash Rawiller protested, alleging had Schofield shifted out between the 600-500m, causing interference to his mount and taking him from a neck off Formal Display to three lengths behind. Both horses were held up late before Formal Display got the split to win. Gringotts, shooting for a hat-trick of victories in the race, finished a length and a quarter off the winner.
Stewards agreed with Rawiller, upholding the protest and saying the interference cost the Ciaron Maher-trained Gringotts “in excess of two lengths”.
“The stewards are satisfied that had you been entitled to your rightful running through that section of the race and had not lost considerable ground as a result of the interference from Formal Display, we say this would have likely resulted in Gringotts obtaining clear running soon after straightening,” chief steward Tom Moxon said.
“Having regard to the incident, and then the ground that you’ve lost, and how the horse did then close the race off, the stewards can be comfortably satisfied that had that interference between the 600 metres and 500 metres not occurred, Gringotts would have finished in advance of Formal Display.”
Gringotts was promoted to third and Matias to second. Trainers Annabel and Rob Archibald had the quinella before Formal Display was relegated to fourth, but they still claimed the win with Hellsing. Rob, though, was clearly upset with the ruling and declined to comment.
The drama came after Schofield won the $10 million Golden Eagle on Saturday at Randwick with Skyhook, and the $20 million Everest with Tempted there two weeks earlier. It was his first win in both races.
Sherry felt for Schofield but happily took the victory.
“I was cursing Chad after the line, just because he’s on a heater at the minute, he’s won an Everest, a Golden Eagle ... just gives us a chance,” Sherry said.
“It was the first good chance I’ve had to win a race, so I wasn’t too happy with him, just because he won, but I feel a bit bad for him now. But we’ll take it for sure.”
Sherry was not surprised by the tough effort from the $26 chance.
“The funny thing with the horse is, third up every prep he fires,” he said. “He had two ordinary runs last preparation, then he won at Randwick and went on to win the Scone Cup.
“I just thought he had a similar preparation. He ran well first up then he went to the Toorak where he didn’t have a great run. He was three deep the trip in a good Toorak, and I thought he was spot on today.”
In the $750,000 Big Dance consolation, the Little Dance (1600m), jockey Dylan Gibbons continued a Sydney spring resurgence with victory on John O’Shea and Tom Charlton-trained Jamberoo ($13).
Gibbons, who won the $3 million Russell Balding last week with Pericles and the group 1 Flight Stakes on Global Goal a month ago, took the seven-year-old to a one-length win over Anythink Goes. Estadio Mestalla was third. Gibbons then scored a profitable race-to-race double, winning the $300,000 Choisir Handicap on Michael Freedman-trained Polyglot.
O’Shea was thrilled to see Gibbons react well to a chat they had a couple of months ago.
“I thought he had more to offer,” O’Shea said. “We wanted consistency and execution. He was just making some poor choices in races that weren’t incumbent of a jockey of his quality. He’s responded, and look how he’s going.
“They can sook or go the other way, but he took it the right way and I’m really proud of him.”
Rawiller took out the $250,000 Barn Dance on Matt Dunn-trained Boom Torque, which stormed home to shade Tickleberry. It gave Rawiller a double on the day after taking O’Shea and Charlton-prepared Graffiti Tycoon to victory.
O’Shea was content to take the promising Graffiti Tycoon through the grades after he smashed the class record in winning the 1300m benchmark 64 handicap for three and four-year-olds.
The $2.60 favourite lunged late to edge out Siragusa, running 1:14.78, which bettered the 1:16.73 record of Robusto from 2022. The win came hot on the heels of Peyton winning for O’Shea and co-trainer Tom Charlton in similar style at Flemington over 1000m. O’Shea said Peyton would be spelled for an autumn return.
Chris Waller stable representative Zane Jones said Man Of Worth could target the $1 million The Gong (1600m) after he raced away to a two and a quarter length win in the 1500m benchmark 88 handicap.
In the opener, All Star gave Hawkesbury trainer Fabio Martino a memorable first victory at Randwick.
The four-year-old broke through at his third attempt in Midway Saturday grade, taking out the benchmark 72 handicap over 1800m by a length from Joe Ible’s race favourite Cabbucio. Martino worked for Chris Waller, Michael Freedman and David Payne before going out on his own four years ago and has 24 horses in work.
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