Ken Casellas | Photo: PACEPIX
While spectators at Gloucester Park on Friday night were cheering with unbridled enthusiasm at the brilliance of superstar pacer Never Ending’s thrilling win in the Group 3 $50,000 SEFS Preux Chevalier Four-Year-Old Classic, few had the faintest idea of the drama surrounding the WA-bred gelding’s half-head victory.
Champion reinsman Gary Hall Jnr admitted that he was unusually nervous before the race and that he was greatly relieved that Never Ending was able to get up and win, while outstanding trainer Justin Prentice said he had many anxious moments during the event.
Prentice is still faced with the problems of finding the right gear to enable Never Ending to race truly.
“With the times they were running tonight and the way Never Ending was steering I thought he was in a lot of strife, and I thought he would have to dig really deep to win,” said Prentice.
“So, I was proud of him that he was able to dig deep when he needed to and to win even though things didn’t go perfectly for him. It wasn’t a very good watch, and I did have some anxious moments.
“Hotly Pursued crossed (to the front) so quickly and then the pace was so slow (with an opening 400m section of 32.3sec.). I knew that Junior (Hall) wanted to put Never Ending into the race. But we both wanted to be conservative, knowing that he would need the run.”
Hall said that Never Ending’s bad habit of hanging in during his races was a worrying problem. “Hanging takes so much out of him,” he explained. “Justin has tried a lot of gear changes, and I don’t have an answer for the problem. Nothing seems to work. If it (a gear change) does works, it works once, and not the next time. He is pretty cagey like that.
“Regardless of the result tonight, it’s not nice having this horse going that fast sideways, so you have to worry about all sorts of things then. Once you let him go, he wants to hang down. Justin says that when he works him the other way (clockwise) he hangs the other way as well; it’s not that he will hang out that way.
“It’s just a running down thing, and Justin won’t stop until he works how to fix things. He will keep trying until we get somewhere with it.
“Never Ending is a very good horse, an exceptional pacer, and if he had been beaten tonight, I would’ve said ‘don’t worry; it’s the hanging.’ He is doing a lot simply on raw ability.
“Tonight, I pulled him up the track wider in the home straight and let him run down. He got to the front (narrowly) about 50 metres from the post. If he had driven straight in the home straight, he would have won by a half-length.”
The stays of Hall’s sulky contacted the off-side wheel of Hotly Pursued sulky in the final few strides but did not affect that pacer’s progress.
“It was a relief to get up and win,” said Hall. “I was nervous. He’s probably the only horse I’m nervous about driving. His final 1200 metres was pretty solid. A lot of people will be saying ‘he’s supposed to be a superstar, but he has won by a breath.’ The win was better than what it might have looked like.”
Prentice added a near side Murphy blind to Never Ending’s gear on Friday night and removed the block blinkers. “We’ve had the Murphy on previously,” he said. “The first time we used the Murphy blind was in the three-year-old Pearl in May last year (when he raced at the rear and went five and six wide on the home turn and got up to win in a three-way photo finish from Sorridere and Overly Excited).
“But the Murphy had the effect of revving him up a bit. He used to pull in front, so we put blocks on him, and we thought that if he couldn’t see the other horses around him he might settle, and we thought that it did help him to some degree, and it was really only the Derby (last November) that he was uncontrollable, and this cost him (finishing second to Skylou).
Prentice is at his wit’s end as he attempts to find the best solution to cure the gelding’s habit of hanging in. “He has never been easy to steer, and as a two-year-old he hung in all that campaign,” said Prentice.
“If he pulls up in good shape the plan will be to back him up next Friday night and then run in the $100,000 Westbred Classic a fortnight later, followed by the $1.25 million Nullarbor the next week.”
Never Ending, racing first-up after a 20-week absence, was the $1.20 favourite from the outside barrier in the field of six on Friday night, with Kyle Harper getting the $6 second fancy Hotly Pursued away fast from barrier five to burst straight to the front.
Lusaka ($8.50) began fast from barrier three before Deni Roberts restrained him back to last, leaving Never Ending in fifth position in the Indian file affair. Hall eased Never Ending off the pegs with 1400m to travel and then Harper lifted the tempo significantly with the final three quarters whizzing by in 28.8sec., 27.6sec. and 27.9sec.
Hotly Pursued appeared the likely winner on the home turn, but it was Never Ending’s splendid fighting qualities which enabled him to claw his way to a memorable victory, scoring by a half-head from Hotly Pursued, with $12 chance All Is Well finishing strongly into third place after trailing the winner over the final 1400m.
Never Ending, who rated 1.59.3 over the 2536m, has amassed $470,150 from 13 wins and two placings from 15 starts.