Aggressive ride from Cassidy gets Dissident home in the Hobartville Stakes

An aggressive ride on Dissident by evergreen jockey Jim Cassidy rewarded the Peter Moody stable with a win in the Group 2 $200,000 Hobartville Stakes (1400m) at Rosehill today.

Dissident wins Hobartville Stakes

Dissident (outside) holds of Atlante to win Hobartville Stakes at Rosehill. Photo by Steve Hart

Sydney stable representative Claire Cunningham said the plan today was to have Dissident ($4) on the pace in the wet conditions and Cassidy responded with a vintage ride to get the three year old home by a head over New Zealand colt Atlante ($8.50) with Savvy Nature ($11) running on late for third another one and half lengths away.

“The idea was to go forward because of the way the track was playing,” Cunningham said.

“I said to Jimmy before the race, he is the best there but you do have to get him out there and make him do it cause he will switch off if you let him.”

“He jumped really well and Jimmy kept him there and I think made sure he was going to work home.”

Cunningham and Cassidy both agree that Dissident will continue to improve over more ground and will now head to the Group 1 $600,000 Royal Randwick Guineas (1600m) at Randwick in a fortnight.

“Jimmy said to me that he would be happy over ten furlongs and would run the same type of races and still hit the line just as strong. By the look at that race he will still appreciate further and be a bit uncomfortable at the shorter distances,” Cunningham said.

Even though Cassidy said that Dissident wasn’t fully comfortable in the wet conditions, he kept responding to his continuous urgings throughout the race.

“He’s tough. I had to be aggressive on today to hold his spot and I was at him the whole way,” Cassidy said.

“He was only so, so in the ground but I think chasing him and annoying him and keeping him focused and interested helped him get through it. I think when get gets to ten furlongs he’s the sort of horse that will appreciate being able to travel.”

Kiwi colt Atlante never looked happy on the soft track either and also did a good job to respond to Glyn Schofield’s hard riding.

Schofield had to start pushing the Murray Baker trained colt along from the 900m when he started to lose his position but to his credit Atlante picked the bit up and fought hard to the line.

Pre-race favourite El Roca was a shock scratching when stewards ordered his withdrawal after it was established that the New Zealand trained colt had received some treatment on Friday morning which was against the rules.

Trainer Trent Busuttin was very disappointed to miss today’s run in the Hobartville Stakes and will now start El Roca in the Group 3 $150,000 Liverpool City Cup (1300m) at Warwick Farm next week and then back him up in the Royal Randwick Guineas the following week.

About The Author

Mark Mazzaglia

Mark is a passionate journalist with a life-time involvement in the racing industry. He spent many years as an analyst and form expert at the Courier Mail and also has hands-on experience working with some of Queensland’s top trainers.