Ken Casellas | Photo: PACEPIX
Champion trainer David Aiken has enjoyed great success with his pacers in Western Australia, and it was an emotional time at Gloucester Park on Friday night when his old war horse Max Delight caused an upset with a thrilling victory in the $1,250,000 TABtouch Nullarbor slot race.
The win came as a tremendous boost for the much loved 67-year-old Aiken, who has recently won the greatest battle of his life, getting the all clear after a three-year fight to overcome prostate cancer.
“This has given me a great lift, one hundred per cent,” said Aiken. “My health is really good, and I got a clean bill last November when I finished radiation.”
Aiken was forced to leave his farm and training establishment at Avenel in country Victoria two years ago and move to New South Wales to care for his team of pacers at Menangle.
“In Victoria I had to travel 130 kilometres a day for treatment in Shepparton, and it was much easier to move to New South Wales where it was only a ten-minute trip for treatment,” he explained.
And on Friday night Aiken capped a splendid training feat to produce ten-year-old gelding Max Delight in fine fettle to score a wonderful victory and end a losing sequence of 14.
This gave Aiken his 34TH Group 1 success, and it was emerging star reinsman Will Rixon’s fourth Group 1 victory and his 929TH win in an outstanding ten-year career.
The win was also a great tonic for Max Delight’s owner, octogenarian Mick Maxfield, a Devonport businessman who is not enjoying the best of health and was unable to make the trip to Perth where he was represented at Gloucester Park by his son Dean.
Max Delight was sold for the then Australian record of $245,000 at the 2017 Sydney yearling sale, and the son of champion sire Bettors Delight has now earned $2,009,599. He is the second foal out of former brilliant mare Lady Euthenia, who raced 40 times for 21 wins, seven placings and $461,285. She won four Group 1 feature events as a two-year-old before winning the 2010 New South Wales Oaks at Harold Park.
Max Delight, lining up for his 161ST start, was a $19 chance in Friday night’s race, with local ten-year-old stars Minstrel ($2.70 favourite) and Magnificent Storm ($3.10) dominating betting.
Magnificent Storm (barrier four) was expected to burst straight to the front, but when he didn’t, it left Rixon in a quandary, whether to make a bid for the early lead or to look for an ideal sit in the one-wide line.
“The plan was to get to the running line and get behind Minstrel in the one-out, one-back position,” said Rixon. “It crossed my mind when Aiden (De Campo, driving Magnificent Storm) didn’t come out, that I should force my way to the front.
“I took a breath and thought about making a bid for the front, but decided against it, considering we would get pressured in the lead.”
This was a wise decision. The polemarker Hugotastic ($17) led for the first 400m before Magnificent Storm surged to the front, with Minstrel moving, menacingly, to his outside and leaving Max Delight with a perfect trail.
Magnificent Storm was being hailed as the winner when he shrugged off the challenge from Minstrel approaching the home turn. But he was unable to keep Max Delight at bay, with the veteran finishing powerfully to gain the upper hand 45m from the post and winning by a neck from $71 outsider and Minstrel’s stablemate Golden Lode, who thundered home, out five and six wide after being ninth with a lap to travel. Minstrel battled on to finish sixth.
Magnificent Storm finished third, a length ahead of the $7.50 third fancy Ubetcha Tigerpie, who ran home solidly after racing in the one-out, two-back position. The winner rated a smart 1.54.9 over the 2536m journey after the final three 400m sections were run in 28.7sec., 27.8sec. and 29sec.
For Aiken, Max Delight’s win revived wonderful Gloucester Park memories when his pacers Lennytheshark and Hectorjayjay performed so brilliantly, with Lennytheshark winning the 2015 Interdominion championship and being a heat winner in the following Inters series in Perth in 2016 and 2017. Hectorjayjay won three heats and finished second to Smolda in the final of the 2017 Inters.
“Lenny was pretty special,” said Aiken. “And this horse (Max Delight) has been a great old horse.”
Max Delight had three different trainers for his first eight starts, in New South Wales, Tasmania and Victoria, before entering Aiken’s stables, and in March 2019 he was a $71 outsider when he won the 2019 NSW Derby before winning the Tasmanian Derby.
A year later, Max Delight finished third behind Lochinvar in the Chariots Of Fire at Menangle and suffered a strained tendon which kept him out of action for eleven months.
Providing he pulls up well after his Nullarbor victory Max Delight will contest the $300,000 Fremantle Cup next Friday night.