A bonny contender

NICK TOLERTON | 11th November 2009

He’s the favourite for Saturday’s $225,000 New Zealand Cup at Riccarton, but four-year-old colt My Scotsgrey is more used to achieving against the odds.

And even dyed-in-the-wool Cantabrians mightn’t mind too much if the handsome grey North Island raider with the big ticker gets up to win the classic.

The horse was born by caesarean after his mother went into early labour and died, and the stud farm had to find a foster mare for him.

He wasn’t raced as a two-year-old, but the orphan start hasn’t affected the horse too much, says trainer Shaune Ritchie, of Cambridge.

"He was a little bit late maturing and developing, but he’s certainly come through OK."

My Scotsgrey has also bounced back from two big kidney infections, and now has a special potassium diet to keep his kidneys flushed.

At the Karaka yearling sales, Ritchie bid $35,000 for the colt, which had a $40,000 reserve.

However, some owners come to him afterwards looking for a horse, and My Scotsgrey was bought for the reserve price.

And fortunately for Ritchie, he chipped in for a share.

A year ago they took a big punt sending him to the Melbourne Cup carnival, where he was a creditable seventh in the Victorian Derby after being second in a warm-up, and the campaign earned more than $50,000.

"However, we’ve been aiming for a long time at the New Zealand Cup," said Ritchie. "And winning a week out (in last Saturday’s Gold Cup Metropolitan) means we’re right on target.

"There’s no form guide like winning form!"

Ritchie said My Scotsgrey was an exceptionally relaxed horse – "he’s one of those horses, you could take him to the bar after the race."

So laid back, in fact, that in the birdcage after winning the Metropolitan, jockey Leith Innes quipped that Ritchie’s one-year-old daughter Delta, who was looking on, could just about race him.

Innes was on "lettuce leaf and carrot" to get down to ride, but will be feasting at McDonald’s on Saturday night if he wins the cup, joked Ritchie.

My Scotsgrey is Ritchie’s first New Zealand Cup runner, although he had a group one victory at Riccarton three years ago with Magic Cape in the 2000 Guineas.

Ritchie was born to racing. Both his father and grandfather trained, and Ritchie used to have Best Bets rather than his textbooks in his maths classes.

As a teenager he travelled to Japan and Australia helping look after his dad Frank Ritchie’s great champion Bonecrusher.

There is a story to My Scotsgrey’s name.

As well as the play on the name of the regiment famous for its grey horses, one of the owner’s sons is Scott.

The horse was to have been named simply Scotsgrey, but since there was a previous horse of that name – the 1889 New Zealand Derby winner – the owners had to add the prefix.