Jigsaw seals big-race double for Manhattan Rain at Cranbourne
West Australian-based stallion Manhattan Rain (Encosta De Lago) sealed a feature double on the other side of the country when the born-again Jigsaw won the second edition of Cranbourne slot race The Meteorite (1200m) on Saturday.
Geisel Park Stud will have been cheering loudly when emerging Manhattan Rain four-year-old Sabaj took the Cranbourne Cup at the eastern Melbourne track’s feature day,
but 40 minutes later they were seeing double when their stallion’s seven-year-old son Jigsaw raised a hat-trick with a dominant all-the-way win in the $1 million Meteorite.
Ridden superbly by apprentice Logan Bates, $6 chance Jigsaw sped to the front from gate 11 of 14, withstood pressure to his outside from $6.50 shot Arkansaw Kid (Harry Angel), and powered home in the straight to score by 0.75 lengths.
Team Hayes’s Arkansaw Kid took second, 1.25 lengths ahead of Zou Sensation (Zoustar), trained by Leon and Troy Corstens and Will Larkin, also at $6.50. The $3.60 favourite Hedged (Capitalist) over-raced and weakened to finish seventh.
For winning trainer Cindy Alderson, Jigsaw’s effort – racing for slot holders the Moonee Valley Racing Club – stood as a triumph on a huge day for her family.
Four hours earlier had come the running of the inaugural race named after her retired trainer father Colin Alderson – not only a Group 1-winning conditioner but a man described as a Cranbourne “visionary” whose work behind the scenes helped lead to the building of the modern state-of-the-art training facility at the track.
With her father and former training partner in the stands, Cindy Alderson was overjoyed after Jigsaw continued a remarkable campaign with his Meteorite victory, the $455,000 first prize taking his earnings past $1.8 million.
“I can’t really believe it to be honest,” she told Racing.com.
“Especially with everybody around me today. My dad’s here, my mum, my sister, her children – it’s a real family affair. Logan’s like family to me, he’s been with us all along, and all my staff are like family, so it’s a really special moment.”
Jigsaw – bred by Alderson’s mother Lynne – had shaped as something potentially special when he won nine of his first 21 starts. That included four in a row: the Apache Cat Classic (1000m) on Cranbourne Cup day in 2022, Listed sprints at Caulfield and Sandown, and Moonee Valley’s Australia Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m).
But after adding Mornington’s Hareeba Stakes (Listed, 1200m) in April 2023, the gelding appeared to lose his way, with 12 starts going by over two years capped only by just two third placings.
However, from the second start of this campaign, all that has changed.
Jigsaw scored his second Apache Cat Classic victory – as an $11 longshot in a field of seven. He then matched his finest black type success by taking Moonee Valley’s McEwen Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m), this time at $19, and showed those were no flukes with his Meteorite win on Saturday.
“It’s not really anything I can put my finger on except for he did have a lovely spell and I think that really got him back in great shape,” Alderson said when asked to explain the horse’s improvement.
“He’s just enjoying himself. He’s got his confidence right up. He and Logan are a new combination and it’s just absolutely amazing. It’s such a thrill.”
Bates has been aboard throughout this campaign, though unable to apply his two-kilogram claim in all three wins.
“For a boy who’s got a claim still to be able to ride a race like that, when he’s going to be the hunted leading like that – each time someone different has a go at him he handles it, and the horse handles it, and he just knows him so well,” Alderson said.
Alderson is unlikely to be tempted to now run Jigsaw in Southside Racing’s other $1 million slot race, the Supernova (1400m) at Pakenham on December 13, saying “we’ll just stay in our wheelhouse”. Jigsaw has raced five times beyond 1200 metres, failing to make the frame on each occasion.
Bates paid tribute to Alderson and her staff for how the revitalised Jigsaw has performed this campaign.
“He’s just gone from strength to strength this prep,” the apprentice said.
“All credit goes to Cindy and the staff. They’ve done an amazing job to give him that time to get over what he was doing last prep, to bring him back and have the confidence to keep him going.
“He was made to work early today, but I felt we still got it [the lead] soft enough. He holds an unbelievable gallop around a corner and that’s where he breaks them open.
“To the horse’s credit he just keeps digging and digging with that one charge. He pricked his ears coming home. He was pretty happy with it.”
Jigsaw – and as of Saturday also Sabaj – are among three stakes winners for Manhattan Rain this season, the other being mare New York Lustre, who took the Begonia Belle Stakes (Gr 3, 1100m) at Flemington on Derby day.
The 19-year-old stallion now has 21 stakes winners from 453 runners worldwide at 4.6 per cent, including three elite-level victors in Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) queen She Will Reign, Australasian Oaks (Gr 1, 2000m) heroine Benagil, and South African star Whisky Baron.
Manhattan Rain is currently standing for $6,050 at Geisel Park, where he’s covered 136 mares in the past three seasons since moving to WA
Five-time stakes winner Jigsaw is the third of four named foals for New Zealand-bred mare Demandz (Lonhro), a city winner on both sides of the Tasman, who was trained in Australia in partnership by Colin and Cindy Alderson.
Demandz’s second foal Queen Adele (Adelaide) was Listed placed, also for Cindy Alderson.
Cindy and mother Lynne now have Demandz’s yearling filly by Street Boss (Street Cry), and her filly foal by Cylinder (Exceed And Excel).