Spring racing / Steve Mcghee / 20 October 2009 / Leave a comment Bet Now

Minnesota Shark resumes in the last race at Geelong on Cup Day and this well named galloper, when he stays sound, has played against some top class names in a brief career to date, so can he get back into the main draw?

The last race at the Geelong meeting on Wednesday sees the four-year-old entire Minnesota Shark resume for the Tommy Hughes Jnr stable at Flemington and if this is not the unluckiest horse around than he is surely top three.

The soundness and problems of this galloper have been sorely tested in just an eleven-start career to date that has returned one win and two places to date.

He has run in Group or Listed races in eight of his eleven starts and his only win came at Listed level and one of his two placings came at G3.

Minnesota Shark clearly has plenty of ability but seems to have been fighting fights he could not win all of his racing life so far and on Wednesday once again he is thrown in the deep end.

He will from gate one, which may not actually help him either, tackle the $50,000 Dual Choice Plate (1200m) and is meeting sprinters that have won from four races all the way up to thirteen wins, and he has just a single frame on the board.

Once you look into the record of Minnesota Shark it is mind-boggling just what he has met let alone competed with credit against.

His last run saw him resume in the autumn and finish eighth, which was his only run since last spring and his only outing since, so problems have clearly flared up again.

The easy winner winner of that autumn open three-year-old over 1200m was called First Command, the new sprint star in the Lee Freedman stable this season.

First Command crushed the field and since resuming this season should be three-for three but has had to settle for a fresh up Listed 1100m win, a nostril defeat in the G2 Gilgai (1200m) by the smart All Silent and then finally last weekend a comfortable win in the G2 Perri Curren (1100m) at Caulfield.

The last eight starts of the nine-race career by First Command have returned seven wins and a nose defeat and he is a four-year-old sprinter heading places and perhaps overseas next year.

Minnesota Shark five and a half months before that meeting of First Command, ran in a G1 and a pair of G2 races for three-year-olds and happened to strike each time a rising force called Whobegotyou, you know the hot favourite for the Cox Plate this Saturday and unbeaten at Moonee Valley.

It is amazing that Minnesota Shark finished fourth, beaten six lengths, at Moonee Valley in the G2 Stutt Stakes (1600m) from a bad draw behind Whobegotyou, as he ran on from well back to show his motor is good just not quite a Rolls Royce.

The next time out he found the G1 Caulfield Guineas a bit rich, after a slow start, which was won emphatically by Whobegotyou and then he was lame after the G2 AAMI Vase (2040m) behind that same good horse.

If striking that amount of quality and having health and fitness problems at the same time is just incredible then there is more before that to make you go Minnesota Shark was destined to never consistently sink the winning shot.

The one thing that gives him hope today is that fresh up he has a Listed win over 1200m, a fresh up second beaten less than a length and that fresh up eighth to First Command, when not well afterwards.

Minnesota Shark goes best fresh and for such an injury prone galloper it is probably one of the few times he can clear the table and rack up another win, as something else will go wrong soon after, you can bet on it.

After his fresh up win two campaigns ago he then ran in an open 1400m for three-year-olds at Caulfield and finished seventh, with the first three home being Tavistock (G1 winner at WFA this season in New Zealand), Romneya (G2 and G3 winner and multiple Group and Listed placings since) and Excelltastic (won Listed level and placed at G1 once and G2, G3 and Listed level once plus has won two of last three races this season and placed third in the other).

Next time out Minnesota Shark ran in the G3 Caulfield Guineas Prelude (1400m) and found the winner Super Boy (Listed placed twice and now in Hong Kong and ran a good race fresh up) and Time Thief (Listed winner and G1 placed twice in four runs since and rated highly).

Just to show you that Minnesota Shark also struck good sorts as a juvenile, we find at his second start in the G2 Blue Diamond Prelude, he ran third to Wilander that day.

Wilander goes quick and since has been a G2 and Listed winner plus was good enough to finish fourth at G1 in the Lightning Stakes (1000m) at WFA to Scenic Blast, the big sprinter that won the G1 Kings Stand at Royal Ascot this year.

Here are just two of the names in that Lightning Stakes that Wilander beat home that day, namely Weekend Hussler and Apache Cat.

You will be pleased to know that Minnesota Shark ran in the 2008 G1 $1 million Blue Diamond Stakes (1200m) and from gate eight ran home well from the rear to finish fifth beaten just two lengths.

If the cue is not put back in the rack just yet with Minnesota Shark then maybe the half brother to Fast Eddie (hence the mixed name) could yet get to play on the top table again.

If you are a big fan of Paul Newman films and in particular The Hustler, where as Eddie Felson the pool hustler and gambler he rumbles with the top pool shark Minnesota Fats played by Jackie Gleason, then you will see the reasons for the horse names.

The late great Newman resurrected his Felson role in The Colour Of Money twenty-five years later, which is exactly the green stuff that bettors could well see and enjoy, if they time the plunge on Minnesota Shark with 'masse' like perfection to fill up the pocket.

Newman at the end of The Colour Of Money, when he realizes despite age and setbacks that he still has that ability to win at the highest level, says it all on behalf hopefully of the galloper Minnesota Shark and that is "I'm back".