Premiership trainer Peter Moody was quick to include all his staff in the stable’s achievement of training two hundred winners for the season, saying it was a huge team effort.
Peter Moody with one of his 200 winners for the season Lights Of Heaven - photo © Daniel Costello
“The staff, the owners and my jockeys – we’re all a team and it really feels like it the way we go about it. It’s been a massive effort,” Moody said.
Moody started the day’s racing on Saturday with 197 winners, including Black Caviar’s win in the Group 1 £500,000 The Diamond Jubilee Stakes (6 furlongs) at Royal Ascot on June 23 and added Morphettville winner Volando to his tally early in the day.
The stable then wrapped up a winning Flemington double to reach the two hundred mark.
Outsider Infinite Energy and race favourite Club Command were able to quinella the $100,000 Slickpix/TVN Silver Bowl Series Final for three year olds over 1600m and then the stable won the $100,000 All Victorian Sprint Series Final (1200m) with new stable acquisition Ready To Rip.
Moody was surprised that Ready To Rip was so heavily backed from $10 to start the $2.40 favourite, saying that four year old had pleased him in his lead up to his stable debut but had done nothing special on the tracks.
“I can assure you, it wasn’t any from our stable. Whoever got the $10 can drop around a six-pack,” Moody said.
“I came here open-minded. He hadn’t done anything special at home, but he’s been professional.”
Moody also acknowledged that stable rider Luke Nolen was a large part of the team’s success and said he knocked back a Hong Kong contract to help the stable to achieve its best season as well as trying to retain the jockey’s title.
“He wanted to stay around and help us out and try to win the premiership,” Moody said.
Nolen drew level with Craig Newitt on sixty-five wins with the victory on Ready To Rip and was quick to pay tribute to Moody.
“Whether he’d be 50th or first on the trainer’s table, he’d be just the same,” Nolen said.
“You very much feel part of the side. Peter Moody has been top of the pops in Australia for a good while now and the man hasn’t changed at all and I think that’s a credit to the person he is.”
Moody wrapped up another successful Group 1 season when he took out the $500,000 Channel Seven Queensland Derby (2400m) with Brambles and the $1m AAMI Stradbroke Handicap (1400m) at Eagle Farm on June 9 with Mid Summer Music.
The two Group 1s over the Brisbane Winter Carnival ensured that Moody gained the title of winning the most Group 1s in the 2011-2012 season with ten wins and then added to that tally with Black Caviar’s win at Royal Ascot.
Moody also has his third Melbourne trainer’s premiership in the bag with eighty-five wins with three weeks to go, well clear of Mick Price who is currently on forty-eight and Robert Smerdon on forty.
