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“Proficient makes a winning start”
Wednesday’s card at Sandown got underway with a maiden for the 3-year-olds and up over the 1,000m trip. At an SP of $1.90, it might be seen as a relatively straight forward debut for success for Proficient under Michael Dee. Trained by the Hayes training partnership for Godolphin, she made the perfect start to her racing career when breaking quickly from the stalls to get into the ideal position on the quarters of the early leader around the turn. At 4.6s, she was the fastest horse to reach 50 km/h from the gate and that early advantage and the ability to get a clear run once the field straightened for the judge proved to be the key. With an average stride frequency of 2.46 per second, she had the highest SF figure in the field and maintained that consistently throughout the contest. She had shown similar early speed when winning a Jump Out trial at Pakenham in the lead up to this racecourse debate and her early speed would look to be her best attribute. This was a nice start for the daughter of Lonhro, but both the data and the replay would certainly suggest that the runner-up was an unlucky loser.
This was a first start for Final Moment since she finished 4th in a $150k Handicap at Caulfield in May where she chased home the subsequent G2 placed Salty Pearl, but she did have the benefit of a couple of Jump Out trials at Mornington in August and September to get her ready for this. Given her experience, it was perhaps surprising to see her jump out to her right when leaving the stalls, bumping one of her rivals and handing an early advantage to the winner. Once into the straight, she responded well and given that she was asked to make her challenge through a very narrow gap between the winner and the eventual 3rd (Act Natural). Final Moment recorded a longer average stride length than the winner at 7.6m (Proficient 7.5m) and ranked better for both her Top Speed (72.1 km/h) and Run-out Speed (60.6 km/h). Having run the final 600m with splits of 10.32, 10,.24 and 11.04s, each of which was the fastest sectional split in the field, she was extremely unlucky not to get her head in front on the line. A finishing time of 56.14s matched that of the winner Proficient and with such a narrow margin between the pair, she is a horse to be added to every black book for the next time she runs.