HORSE RACING

THE 100 per cent strike rate continues for Mornington-based trainer Clayton Douglas as his sole runner to date, Barocha, brought up his second straight victory at Geelong on Sunday 6 September.

Coming off a five-length maiden romp at Sale last month, Barocha once again demonstrated that he’s a serious city class talent by scoring a two-and-a-half length victory in benchmark 64 grade.

The four-year-old gelding by Ilovethiscity settled three-wide with cover at the rear of the field before steaming straight past his rivals in the straight and landing a comfortable win under the guidance of jockey, and Douglas’ fiancée, Jamie Kah.

Trainer Clayton Douglas said he was glad to see his promising gelding perform just as well on the dry track as he did on the heavy track on debut.

“I was just hoping he’d do that and it’s good to see him do it on top of the ground,” Douglas said post-race.

“He’s a nice progressive horse and he can get right off the speed and he’s really electric so he’s the perfect racehorse. You couldn’t really script it better to have a horse and your first runner with this much ability. I’m really looking forward to seeing what this horse can do and hopefully he can win a nice race for me. “

Douglas had planned on stepping the gelding up in distance in his future runs, and Sunday’s performance only enhanced his thoughts.

“I want to get this horse out to 1400m and that was always the plan just to be quiet and give them a start and obviously his ability kicked in at the furlong (200m) and he put them away really nicely today,” he said.

Barocha has a couple of options to head to next with Douglas eyeing off benchmark 70 and benchmark 78 races at Flemington and Caulfield respectively over 1400m.

First published in the Mornington News – 8 September 2020