Willie Pike knows Mr Mozart loves a challenge – to the point where he’ll wait for his chasers to catch up before finding another gear.
And that was exactly what he did in the $200,000 Hawkesbury Guineas (1400m) at Clarendon on Saturday, beating Dalchini (for Lee and Cherie Curtis) to the post by a quarter of a length.
2022 Hawkesbury Guineas Replay
“We were tardy away. I did a bit of work to get there,” Pike told Sky Racing about the Michael, Wayne and John Hawkes-trained colt.
“But I told myself in the run ‘he’s done this every start’, so I didn’t want to change the pattern.
“I was reasonably confident the whole way. Just that last bit when I felt them coming I thought ‘oh no’, but he waits till they get to him and then he fights.”
It was the three-year-old’s third consecutive triumph, after online betting sites to take out the Stradbroke Handicap on June 11.