Black And Bent, and more

At a press conference at the Aquanita stables in Caulfield today to promote the $200,000 Grand National Hurdle (4000m) and its headline act Black And Bent at Betfair Park, Sandown, on Sunday, jumps racing’s best friend and the Minister for Patting Horses (especially Black And Bent), Denis Napthine, patted Black And Bent.

Napthine also took the chance to say jumps racing is back on the right track, a claim backed by the numbers of horses licensed to run in jumps races in Victoria – up to 222 from just 73 in April.

And he said he’ll have more to say, namely in telling Racing Victorian that on the back of a good season it should give steeplechasing the same secure terms as hurdling has – hurdling originally got a three-year lifeline, steeplechasing only one year.

Those at the press conference also can pass on this information …

1. Black And Bent, the jumper of the moment, has white line fever. Well almost, according to trainer Robert Smerdon, who said the gelding’s ability to get back and win on the flat and over hurdles after a serious tendon injury came down to “the will of the horse” and claimed “you’d almost call it white line fever”.

2. With two wins from two jumps starts this season, Black And Bent, according to Napthine, is “an absolute champion”.

3. Smerdon is looking to Black And Bent (five city flat wins, and the Australian Hurdle among eight hurdle wins) to go past the best jumpers he has trained. He said he always thought Zabenz was an absolute star (the 2002 Grand National Hurdle was his third win from three hurdle starts before going to the US, where he won a Grade 1 jumps race) and that Some Are Bent’s record (winner of the Grand National and Galleywood Hurdles, and the Brierly and Hiskens Steeples) spoke for itself, but “this bloke is probably poised to be the best of all (he has trained)”.

4. Winning the Grand National on Sunday would be good for Black And Bent’s CV, said Smerdon, adding that great jumpers of the past had won it.

5. The only two runs set in stone this campaign are the GN Hurdle and the $100,000 JJ Houlahan Hurdle over 3400m two weeks later, also at Sandown.

6. Black And Bent could go on to the world’s richest jumps race, the Nakayama Grand Jump in Japan, later this year. Would he measure up? “I don’t know the answer to that,” Smerdon said. “His flat form’s better than Zabenz, who won a Grade 1 jump in US.”

7. Will B&B have to run in a steeplechase here if he is to go on to the Grand Jump? Smerdon said that when investigating previously he had been told it “was not absolutely necessary”, so the horse would probably only school over the bigger jumps.

8 Part-owner Mike Symons said if connections were to take the flat route to a “dream start” in the Melbourne Cup, the first qualifying race was likely to be in either the $100,000 Ansett Classic (2400m) at Mornington on Grand Final day, October 1, or the $200,000 Bart Cummings (2500m) at Flemington the next day.

9. Symons said he and fellow owners were “the luckiest blokes on the planet”, having paid just over $70,000 for the two Bent jumpers (Some Are Bent is B&B’s older half-brother) and winning “collectively about $1.7 million and 35 races”.

10. If the Melbourne Cup is too rich, consolation could come in the $100,000 Lavazza Long Black (2800m), the other staying race on Cup day (November 1), or the $125,000 Sandown Cup (3200m) at Betfair Park on November 12.

One more thing: Marked Danger, a four-year-old jumper trained by Smerdon, is not mentioned in the same breath as B&B – four hours after the press conference finished the stable “lesser light” won a 3330m hurdle at Mornington, paying $7.

Photo: Denis Napthine, dress in Aquanita colours, with Black And Bent in the background at today’s press conference. (courtesy Aquanita Racing)