Hot for Hussler and Seventh Rock

Weekend Hussler, our own Seventh Rock and Apache Cat, due to run on Sat.

TRAINER Ross McDonald believes that the measures the Victorian Racing Club will adopt on Saturday to combat the expected stifling heat is enough to ensure his champion sprinter, Weekend Hussler, will take his place in the Lightning Stakes field.

With Victoria bracing for four days of 40-degree heat, McDonald said that the VRC's idea of hosing down horses immediately after races was a positive move.

The Caulfield trainer said that he was at Randwick last Saturday and endured the extreme humidity but said that the AJC's decision to have three men hosing down horses immediately after each race was successful.

"It seemed to work well and I've spoken to people at Flemington after the trials there on Tuesday that said it again worked well with horses being cooled down moments after they were pulled up," McDonald said.

"In an ideal world, it would be lovely to give them a drip with glucose to help their body fluids but I don't think they would go for that.

"We are on a tight time-frame with the horse as he's going to race every two weeks for six weeks and if I miss one race that'll make his preparation pretty tough."

Racing Victoria acting chief steward Allan Reardon said that he and his panel would monitor the heat situation but applauded the move of having men with hoses posted in mounting yards moments after races.

"Look, it's a matter of discretion. The veterinary people will keep us up-to-date at the condition of horses and so will the jockeys who have to ride in the heat," he said.

"But at the end of the day, it's the steward's decision on whether a meeting goes ahead or not."

Victorian Jockey's Association chief executive Des O'Keefe said measures had been taken to assist jockeys to get through extreme heat.

"All of the jockeys' rooms throughout the state are air-conditioned and baths of ice are specially brought in to keep their body temperature down between races," O'Keefe said.

"There would be no parade of horses before the race and jockeys would just come out and be legged on their mounts and taken straight to the barrier and, hopefully with the right timing, they would be placed in the gates immediately and the race would begin.

"After the race, there'd be no laps of honour. As soon as their mounts have completed the race, they'd be brought straight back to the mounting yard, unsaddled and jockeys would be taken to the air-conditioned room."

O'Keefe cautioned that it was the first time in memory that Victoria had faced four days of such heat.

"What we've found to be the three major components to placing jockeys and horses under stress are humidity, no wind and extreme temperatures," he said.

"From what we've gleaned, humidity will be low and that there will be air flow and the only thing to combat will be the intense heat but it's just a matter of taking each day as it comes.

"But all of the jockeys we've contacted are more than happy with the changes that we've made to a race day and the efforts we are going to to minimise their exposure to the heat."

Today's Gawler meeting in South Australia has been abandoned because of the expected 42-degree heat. "While this is unfortunate, the welfare and safety of the animals will always be our first priority," Gawler Racing Club chief executive Sean Clarkson said last night

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Seventh Rock out to roll local sprinters

WITH most in racing largely convinced that Weekend Hussler has a mortgage on Saturday's $500,000 Lightning Stakes, trainer David Hayes is hoping that he can inject a wildcard into the group 1 sprint.

Speaking from New Zealand yearling sales after his former South African sprinter Seventh Rock competed in a leisurely trial yesterday morning at Flemington, the trainer was optimistic about the four-year-old's autumn carnival.

Seventh Rock, who, according to Hayes, is in the upper echelon of sprinters in that country, was sent to him three months ago to be set for the Lightning Stakes and Newmarket double.

Late last year his former trainer Charles Laird had made plans to move to Australia but those ambitions were thwarted with Laird deciding to remain in South Africa.

"Once he decided that he wouldn't come to Australia, he recommended that I train the horse and he told me that Seventh Rock is a horse blessed with a good turn-of-foot," Hayes said. "I know it's like taking coals to Newcastle by bringing a very good sprinter to a country that is known worldwide for its short-course horses but I know that he won't let us down.

"We've had him back at Lindsay Park in Adelaide for the past three months and his trackwork is worthy of competing in a race like the Lightning Stakes."

Seventh Rock will be ridden by South African jockey Anton Marcus.

But Seventh Rock's links with Australian racing are not that distant as the four-year-old is by Rock Of Gibraltar and was purchased for $700,000 at the Magic Millions Sales two years ago in Queensland and was bred by Sydney advertising guru John Singleton.

Hayes said he's well aware of the sprinting landscape of Australia that is headed by Weekend Hussler and Apache Cat, both competitors in Saturday's Lightning Stakes.

"Both horses have a wonderful record and Weekend Hussler is a seven-times group 1 winner and his record stands for himself," Hayes said.

"But I've spoken with Craig Williams who trialled Seventh Rock up the straight and he told me the horse adapted well at his first look at the track and was happy with the horse going to Saturday's Lightning Stakes.

Nice thread Scotia was wondering what happened to this great sprinter,will follow this horses progress as he certainly set our tracks alight.