The John and Karen Parsons-trained Residential rallied late to claim Starvoia in a repeat result of the Dunedin and Southland Guineas in February.
While their past three results have been identical, Residential made sure at least the running of Saturday’s race was different.The winner made a blundering start to the race, which threw her usual racing pattern out the window. Exactly why that was the case, after her good getaways in her two previous wins, was a mystery to winning jockey Gosen Jogoo.
"I don’t know what happened. She tripped at the start and I had to ride her where she was."
After settling back in the field, Residential was eager to get on with the race and move up handier to the pace.
"She was a bit keen early, but as the race went on she was all right."
Into the home straight, Starvoia had pinched a break on the field, including her stablemate, and it looked as though she would finally get her listed race reward after running three consecutive Southern guineas placings.
Even Jogoo thought that was going to be the case. He was not confident of picking up Starvoia and Chris Johnson until very late in the home straight.
"Not really — but she had a second kick. She is just an amazing horse."
However, Johnson was involved in the stable’s treble of wins on the day.
He reined home 2yr-old winner Kiwi Ida, who also came with a strong late finish to not only grab victory, but also break the Wingatui 800m track record.
The Squamosa filly’s time of 46.03 in beating local Our Teddy Boy and favourite Prom Queen lowered Waipari Lad’s record set last year.
The Parsons stable again won when another of its 3yr-old fillies in Welcome and jockey Krishna Mudhoo claimed the Wingatui programme’s final event.
Further success came in a much different form for the stable in race 5.
The Parsons did not train the winner of the event, but the result was significant for them. Stable apprentice Tina Comignaghi grabbed her first win after returning from an extended injury break.
The Argentinian-born rider showed no signs of lack of match day practice when steering the Sally McKay-trained King Pin to her first riding victory since January of 2013.
Comignaghi’s injury woes started well before that date, however.
"I broke my wrist in January 2011. Just nothing went right. I had to have operation after operation. I actually had to have a reconstruction of my wrist."
Before the reconstruction was complete, Comignaghi rode between her operations until she could not take the discomfort any more. She then took an extended break after her final reconstructive procedure.
"I went travelling and did other things."
Once she was ready to start riding again, the Parsons were keen to have her back working in their stable.
"John and Karen Parsons always support me. I started working for them in November again and race riding in the new year."
King Pin’s trainer, Sally McKay, had more training success on Saturday’s card when Miss Tuscan scored her maiden victory in race 3.
The trainer has her dual Southern Gunieas placegetter, Showemup, back working towards her autumn feature race targets. The filly injured a joint when playing in her paddock, which ruled her out of last month’s Southland Guineas.
- Jonny Turner
