Tango Rain wins on belated debut
It’s taken longer than expected to get Tango Rain to the races but the wait has been rewarded with the colt’s debut victory at Canterbury.
And trainer Gerald Ryan believes the two-year-old can develop into a stakes horse as long as he can learn to settle in the barriers.
Tango Rain ($12) led all the way to win Wednesday’s colts and geldings 1100m-maiden under Kerrin McEvoy.
It was the first race of the meeting run on a soft surface with a portion of the track near the 450m mark causing concern later in the day.
Tango Rain sported blinkers for his first start, something that has Ryan in a quandary going forward.
“I hate putting blinkers on two-year-olds,” Ryan said.
“He only needs blinkers going into the gates. He doesn’t need them in the race.”
“I don’t really think he’s a blinker horse but Gai Waterhouse had his mother Tango Fire and she didn’t have many starts because she was a problem to load in the gates.
“He was withdrawn from his first trial this time because he got to the barriers and went off, so I put the blinkers on him and he’s been all right.”
Ryan said he had considered putting blinkers on Tango Rain just for the trip to the barriers and it remained an option.
Tango Rain is one of a few youngsters retained by Muzaffar Yaseen’s Teeley Assets which had a dispersal sale of much of its stock last year.
“When Teeley had their dispersal sale they kept four colts and four fillies and I was lucky enough to get two colts including this one,” Ryan said.
“He was ready to race at Rosehill in January but he pulled up sore behind after his work on the Tuesday morning so we had to stop with him.
“But he’s always shown ability and reminds me a lot of Racer’s Edge.”
Ryan trained Racer’s Edge to multiple stakes wins including the 1996 Group One C F Orr Stakes.
Stewards inspected a part of the track before the last race but the event went ahead with Jason Collett bringing up a winning treble on Song And Laughter.
Collett’s other wins came on Sniper and Princess Command.