An obscure rule has seen a good chance – and a lover of heavy conditions – scratched at Warrnambool on Thursday.
The Rhys Archard trained Boltsaver raced at Warrnambool on Wednesday, and bolted home on a heavy track to finish second over 1400m.
His jockey, John Allen, was so impressed with the gelding he told Archard to back him up just 24 hours later given his love of heavy conditions. Warrnambool is rated a Heavy 10 on Thursday as it battles more wintery weather.
Archard said after checking Boltsaver on Thursday morning, they decided to roll the dice and run.
But a call from Racing Victoria Stewards put an end to an unlikely 24 hours of two races. The 5 year-old gelding was rated a $4 chance on Thursday morning in race 8 over the 1400m.
‘’I got out there about six o’clock this morning to make sure the horse all okay – he ate up, and I gave him a walk and pick of grass, and he seemed bright enough,’’ Archard said.
‘’I thought we’d roll the dice to go around again today, just because we just generally don’t get these track conditions in Victoria.”
‘’He just loves them, and we felt like he didn’t have a really hard run yesterday. Johnny Allen come back and he sort of suggested straight away you should think about backing him up.”
‘’We slept on it, made the call to run and then got a call just after eight o’clock from the Stewards, saying that we didn’t follow protocol.’’
Archard said he was unaware of a rule, introduced in 2025 he said, that any runner racing twice in 24 hours needs to be vet checked post their first race, then again the next morning. He wasn’t critical of the Stewards but offered them the chance to inspect Boltsaver on Thursday morning.
‘’The Stewards said that any horse running within twenty four hours, that we need to alert the Stewards the day before, so they can vet it post-race after day one, which I didn’t know,’’ he said.
‘’We suggested, can’t we just vet him on course and if he doesn’t look right, if he trots up lame, they’re not happy then we are more than happy to scratch, but they made the call.”
‘’We don’t know the rules, which is fine. It’s not the end of the world.”
”We know we’ve got a horse that we can run him again in two or three weeks.”
‘’If he ran today, we probably couldn’t run for over a month because it would have would have taken a fair toll out of him.”
‘’But look, that’s the rules made; it’s not the end of the world. We’ve got another run of the day and we’ll go enjoy the day afterwards.’’
Archard said another of his runners, Igotcha in race 4 with the in-form Jamie Mott onboard, will enjoy the heavy going too. The mare is currently $9 with Bet365.
‘’She loves the mud too and she ran second first-up at Geelong,’’ he said.
‘’She’s in a pretty even mares race, she’s in with an each way chance.’’
