Quartet dominate Group One races on opening day of spring carnival in Victoria
Former Hong Kong club jockeys won four Group One races at Flemington yesterday in front of a record crowd of 129,089 on the opening day to the Victoria Racing Club's spring carnival.
Although Chris Munce took the day's honours with a Group One double for top Sydney trainer Gai Waterhouse, the toast of the town was young Queenslander Michael Rodd, who brilliantly captured the Victoria Derby on favourite Efficient.
Craig Williams completed the 'Hong Kong set', taking the Group One Myer Classic for fillies and mares on 20-1 chance Lyrical Bid, trained by Brian Mayfield-Smith.
Efficient was ridden in ice-cool manner by Rodd, who was riding in Hong Kong at this time last year where his major wins were two feature races on the John Moore-trained sprinter Able Prince.
He balanced Efficient some 16 lengths off the leader, Spring Champion Stakes hero Teranba, and was still well back coming to the home turn and locked behind a horse that was going nowhere.
Rodd persisted for a rails run and when one ultimately presented itself, Efficient bounded into the gap and quickly ate up the margin before switching around the heels of the three leaders inside the 200-metre mark. Once Efficient saw daylight, his brilliant acceleration put the Derby away in a heartbeat, with the Zabeel youngster racing away to score by 21/4 lengths from Gorky Park, a Montjeu three-year-old trained by David Hayes and ridden by Dwayne Dunn.
