Mister Swinger claimed his biggest win in two years in the $50,000 Group 2 Shepparton Gold Cup on Saturday night
The remarkable renaissance of Geoff Webster’s one-time Victorian boom horse Mister Swinger continued on Saturday night with success in the $50,000 Group 2 Neatline Homes Shepparton Gold Cup and automatic entry to the BIG6 Hunter Cup on February 5.
Absent from the winners list for exactly 23 months prior to a breathtaking breakthrough over old nemesis Melpark Major on New Year’s Eve, the 2008/09 Ballarat, Cranbourne and South Australian Cup king headed to Shepparton looking to continue his climb back to the top of Australian harness racing.
But despite his recent return to form and polemarking draw, punters ignored the seven-year-old son of Village Jasper, sending him out at $17.40, and after a safe but slow getaway that saw him settle three back the poles in the 2690-metre stand start feature, their reservations appeared well founded.
With Chris Alford sending the well-supported Karlsruhe ($7.30) to the head of affairs and Daryl Douglas happy to sit quietly behind Make Mine Cullen in the breeze through a very moderate lead time of 84.4 seconds, it appeared unlikely that anything outside the first four in running would feature in the finish.
That expectation was only fortified as the leaders dawdled through a 32-second first fraction of the final mile, but in a brilliant piece of reinsmanship, gun young pilot Greg Sugars offered hope to Mister Swinger fans as he extricated the sit-sprinter off the inside and into one-by-two cover.
Steadily stepping up the tempo to record a 30.3 second following fraction, Alford and Karlsruhe had already made the task of race favourites The Sleepy Tripp ($2.80) and Villagem ($4.20) mathematically forlorn and when they put the foot the floor swinging off the back straight, it seemed the race was theirs to lose.
Blistering off the bottom turn in a 27.7 third section, last week’s Bendigo Cup runner-up accelerated away from mighty mare Make Mine Cullen before Standelle and Mister Swinger emerged from behind her with barnstorming finishes down the lane.
Still in front with five metres to run, the leader simply couldn’t resist the second supernatural finishing burst from Mister Swinger from his past three runs and in a closing cut of 27.5 to complete a 2:00.8 mile rate, Sugars and his reborn warrior emerged victorious.
The magnificent win - Mister Swinger’s 22nd from just 67 starts – not only completed one of the finest comebacks in recent memory for Webster and his Bannockburn-based team, but also qualified the multiple Group 1 winner for automatic entry to the BIG6 Hunter Cup at Tabcorp Park on February 5.
That will be the final programme of this year’s SKY Racing Nights Of Glory and in between, Webster will have to decide whether to start his stable star in the PETstock Ballarat Cup on night two of the popular and prestigious carnival.
Having won that Group 1 feature two years ago, the first time he was announcing himself as a Grand Circuit horse of the future, there will be a lot of romantics wanting to see Mister Swinger at Bray Raceway once more, but with his favourite horse once again at the peak of his powers, Webster will no doubt plot a path aimed at long-term success.
