Ken Casellas | Photo: Gloucester Park Harness Racing
New Zealand-bred five-year-old Doc Holliday is a perplexing pacer with a casual attitude who refuses to do his best at the business end of his races.
He was the $5 second favourite who ended a six-month drought and broke a losing sequence of eleven when he scrambled to a half-head victory over the pacemaker The Kraken ($8) in the 2130m You Too Mate Pace at Gloucester Park on Friday night.
Doc Holliday, driven by Gary Hall Jnr, dashed forward from the rear to move into the breeze 1200m from home. The Kraken was safely holding him at bay until the final few strides when Doc Holliday finally lifted his rating and got up to win by a couple of centimetres.
“Doc Holliday really didn’t want to win,” said trainer Michael Young. “He didn’t want to pick up the leader, and it wasn’t until Whatabro came to his outside and pushed him on. Negotiations are taking place for him to be sold to America.”
Hall agreed with Young, saying: “Doc Holliday didn’t want to win. He was hard work; he’s that sort of horse. At the 400m I had the leader beat. Without doubt, he was going way better than The Kraken, and at the end if a horse hadn’t come down the outside he wouldn’t have got past the leader.”
Doc Holliday, a winner of three races in New Zealand, has had 28 starts in WA for eight wins and ten placings to take his record to 52 starts for eleven wins, 17 placings and stakes of $149,973.