Rookie's final-race win helps establish him as a trainer to follow
Rookie trainer David Hall landed one of the biggest successful betting moves in recent years yesterday at Sha Tin with Win For All after his backers nervously watched while the horse refused all attempts to load him into the starting gates.
On a day when all three of the first-season trainers won races, Hall's final-race victory with Win For All (Brett Prebble) was prefaced by a massive late plunge as the horse's odds dropped from $140 to $48 and favourite.
But supporters suffered the dual agony of watching their odds crash down while the subject of the plunge was potentially ruining his own chances by giving merry hell to all and sundry at the barrier stalls.
With the race close to start time and Win For All having come down to $75, the horse refused once more and turned away as another wave of money poured in to slash his odds to $60 and the observant Sha Tin crowd roared in excitement.
Again a loud cheer went up as he displaced John Moore's Winning Power as favourite but was still unhappy about entering the stalls.
'Whoever put the money on would have been getting pretty nervous,' said Hall, who made it three wins for the season in a consolation for his former stayer Makybe Diva winning the Melbourne Cup earlier in the week. 'Well, I got a cup for this race - it wasn't a Melbourne Cup but it was a cup just the same.'
