Ken Casellas | Photo: Hamilton Content Creators
Everything, it seemed, was transpiring to prevent Belly Up from contesting, let alone winning, the $215,000 Allwood Stud Westbred Classic for two-year-old colts and geldings at Gloucester Park on Friday night.
A gentle soul with a friendly nature, the mischievous Belly Up had the annoying habit of stomping on each of his front feet, resulting in ripping off his metal shoes and destroying the inner framework of his complex, precious and suspectable hooves.
A concrete-like mixture was used to fortify the crumbling hooves, and then finally, translucent fibreglass coverings were devised, cumbersome yet strangely streamlined casts that completed surrounded Belly Up’s two front feet.
And then to add to Belly Up’s woes, he drew the dreaded and distinctly and disadvantageous No. 9 barrier, on the outside of the front line in the Group 1 feature event.
Worse was to follow for the Foreclosure gelding who was a comparative outsider at $20.50 for champion trainers Greg and Skye Bond and star driver Deni Roberts.
On the first corner 200m after the start Belly Up locked sulky wheels with $9 chance Hold The Ammo, causing that colt to break into a gallop, and Belly Up to lose a couple of lengths and drop back to the rear.
Roberts was then seen anxiously glancing down a few times at her near-side sulky wheel, fearing that the tyre had been punctured. “Luckily, it didn’t go down,” she said after scoring a remarkable victory.
But that was her last piece of good fortune. Belly Up was racing six back on the pegs in 11TH position in the home straight racing for the bell when Beatitlikebeca broke into a gallop when racing three back on the pegs.
“It was like a domino effect and Belly Up was badly checked,” said Roberts. “We lost a good length, but more importantly we lost momentum. And then when we were racing down the back straight, we got another bad check (when outsider Rocky Maguire, who was racing immediately in front of Belly Up at that stage, was restrained off the sulky of the horse ahead of him).
“I’m over this I said to myself, and I just pulled to the outside.”
Belly Up was a clear last in the field of twelve with 300m to travel, and he then unleashed a spectacular burst of speed, out six and seven wide, to charge to the front in the final few strides. He beat the $6.50 equal second favourite Captain Stirling by a neck, with the $2.65 favourite Paint The Palette just under a half-length away in third place.
Belly Up, whose only win at his only six starts before Friday night’s race was when he finished along the sprint lane to beat Xpress Party by a nose over 2100m at Bunbury on July 23, rated 1.58 over 2130m and boosted his earnings to $132,830.
Rob Gartrell, whose Running Camel business races Belly Up in partnership with Team Bond, gleefully pronounced the gelding was a bargain, having been purchased for $40,000 at the 2023 APG Perth yearling sale.
The win gave Greg and Skye Bond their second success in this event, following Give Us A Wave’s win over Mighty Ronaldo in 2020.
It also was a special milestone for Roberts, giving her a second Group 1 victory, following her easy all-the-way win with the Bond-trained Vegas Strip in the Golden Slipper last September.
“When the fields came out for the Golden Slipper, I was confident about Vegas Strip’s prospects, but I wasn’t confident at all tonight,” she admitted.
“Not many two-year-olds could cop that many checks in a race and finish off like Belly Up did tonight. He is a lovely natured horse; anyone can handle him, and he’s a stable favourite. But his habit of pulling his shoes off was quite concerning.
“He pulled quite a bit of his feet away, and they have had to be built up. It almost got to the point where we almost couldn’t get shoes on him anymore. However, the farriers have done an awesome job with him.
“He has been wearing bell boots, and we’ve been taking every precaution with him. He has always been pulling his shoes off, but the trouble has been worse in recent times. He has had the fibreglass casts built the whole way around to support his hooves. The casts have been on for only a week, and everything has worked out fine.
“I’m excited about the future when I expect him to be a much better horse as a three-year-old.”
Belly Up is by the New Zealand-bred stallion Foreclosure and is out of the New Zealand mare Thats The Spirit, who has produced eight other winners, including Patrickthepiranha (121 starts for 35 wins, 33 placings and $625,620) and Middlepage (100 starts for 18 wins, 21 placings and $184,833).