Ken Casellas | Photo: PACEPIX
WA-bred five-year-old Whos The Dad went into Friday night’s Final Bridge Bar Pace at Gloucester Park with just one win from his previous 26 starts — and he was described by reinsman Ryan Warwick and trainer Ryan Bell as a pacer difficult to follow.
“Looking at his form before the race, it goes up and down a bit,” said Warwick, who was driving Whos The Dad for the first time, becoming the 16TH person to drive him in a race.
“I’m not convinced he is a hundred per cent genuine, but he was tonight.”
Whos The Dad, from the No. 6 barrier, was an outsider at $39.40, and Warwick quickly had him settling nicely in the one-out and one-back position with the $1.45 favourite Coney Island Lou setting a moderate pace after a slow lead time of 37.9sec. and a dawdling opening quarter of 31.7sec.
Solesseo Matuca ($5) was working in the breeze before he got to the front about 115m from the finish. Whos The Dad finished strongly to get to the front in the final few strides to win by 2m from Solesseo Matuca, with Sovrana ($9.50) running on into third place.
“I thought the leader might have rolled along a bit quicker,” said Warwick. “Whos The Dad was following a helmet without travelling too well, and into the bell I touched his tail a couple of times and said I’m not going to worry too much about how he’s travelling. Hopefully, when I pull off the helmet, he will just ping, and he did and got the job done.”
Bell said he felt that Whos The Dad was the beneficiary of a few horses going unders. “He is capable on his night, but he has been a bit hit and miss,” said Bell.
“It was good to see him come from behind tonight. The way he trackworks you would think he is definitely going to go to Free-For-Alls.”
Coney Island Lou dropped out to finish eighth, with reinsman Stuart McDonald explaining: “He overraced and may have choked down.”