Dominican Monk
Dominican Monk ran out an easy winner of a competitive-looking two-mile handicap chase at Sandown on Saturday. Held up just in behind the duelling leaders Baseball Ted and Silver Adonis in the early stages, he found himself almost in the front rank at the cross fence before they went down the back straight as the leaders slowed into the obstacle, which caused Timmy Murphy to severely restrain him back in behind. All the way down the back straight, his jumping continually took him on to the heels of the leaders, only for Murphy to take him back again before the next obstacle, before another fluent leap carried him forward again.
He was still pulling for his head and showing signs of greenness by the time they jumped the last of the Railway Fences, the fourth last, at which point Baseball Ted jumped across him, which wasn't ideal and meant that he was actually relegated to sixth place of the tightly-packed field as they reached the end of the back straight.
As it turned out, it didn't matter. Murphy travelled easiest of all to the Pond Fence, jumped that well, found a nice gap between horses and suddenly Dominican Monk was challenging the leader and running away on the run to the second last. He flew that obstacle, and quickly but the contest to bed on the run to the last. He ran down that fence to his right, again betraying his inexperience, but he had so much in hand that Murphy was able to get him balanced again before simply pushing him out, hands and heels to post a cosy eight-length victory.
Although he is 10 years old, this was just Domincan Monk's second start over fences. The handicapper has put him up just 7lb for this, which looks fair, and he should be worth following wherever he goes next.
7th March, 2009
Back