Rookie trainer Almond Lee finally broke his drought yesterday with a little bit of neighbourly assistance from fellow rookie, New Zealander Paul O'Sullivan, but his dominant emotion was not one of relief.
Lee's horses have run consistently well in his first season as a trainer, but the former assistant to David Hayes endured a shocking run of six seconds and three more thirds from his 42 runners prior to Being Famous (Gerald Mosse) breaking the ice yesterday. 'Actually, I feel a little bit embarrassed - I didn't think it would take this long to have a winner,' Lee said. 'It's nice that the horses have been racing well, but seconds? Racing is about the winner - you win or don't win - and nobody ever cares too much who runs second.'
Punters who took the odds-on price for Being Famous must have thought second number seven was coming up at more than one point of the race yesterday, but Mosse was the difference as he lifted Being Famous to victory by a narrow margin. 'What a great ride, Gerald made him fight back when he was beaten,' Lee said. 'Gerald is my friend and such a great talent as a rider. I'm happy he was on my first winner. This is quite a lazy horse so he needs a top-class jockey.'
Despite the narrow margin, Lee revealed that Being Famous was not at his very best for the race and may be able to improve on that effort.
'I was probably lucky to win this race. Being Famous had to miss some work after getting a cut on his hind leg and anyone could see from the trackwork records that he missed one week,' Lee explained. 'I wanted to run him last week and couldn't, but he had to run today because there wasn't another mile on the dirt for him for a while. So he could improve.
'Anyway, I don't think he is just a dirt horse. He ran well on the turf last season as well.'
