For the second time is as many weeks, Nash Rawiller has pulled off an audacious winning ride, this time aboard Godolphin warhorse Kementari.
Where Rawiller hooked Think It Over towards the outside fence to win the Queen Elizabeth Stakes seven days ago, he scraped paint along the inside rail to squeeze Kementari ($6.50) through the narrowest of openings in a heart-stopping Hall Mark Stakes (1200m) finish at Randwick.
Count De Rupee ($10) had ranged up to claim leader Big Parade ($1.50 fav) as Rawiller sweated on an inside run that looked unlikely to appear.
But horse and jockey barged their way through regardless, shouldering the rail and Big Parade out of the way in the process and bursting through to score by a short neck over Count De Rupee.
“I was obviously full of running and had the opportunity to come out and really didn’t want to,” Rawiller said.
“Full credit to the horse. It got a bit sticky for a couple of strides. He was pretty determined to get through.”
As they did a week ago, stewards hauled Rawiller in for questioning after the race, this time grilling him over whether there was in fact a run to take.
Rawiller argued Big Parade made a slight shift away from the fence, enough for him to get Kementari up inside that horse’s heels before his rival wandered back in and the slither of an opening began to close.
“For me as a jockey, there was no way I could come out of it,” Rawiller said.
“I was stuck between a rock and a hard place.”
Affectionately known as ‘Special K’, Kementari has been a remarkable horse for Godolphin.
A Group 1 winner at three, he was retired to stud but his racing career was resurrected when he proved largely infertile.
He has endeared himself to the Godolphin team with his kind nature and continues to be competitive, winning a Group 2 race in the spring, The Buffering during the Queensland summer and Saturday’s Hall Mark Stakes.
“I think he’s still got a little bit of racing left in him, but I think the most important thing is that he’s given our racing team, the entire operation for that matter, a big thrill,” trainer James Cummings said.
“He’s got something about him that has brought us all together.”
Cummings said they would look at targets in either South Australia or Queensland for the seven-year-old.