Search

Victorian raider leaves Coast rivals in a Spin

A tenacious Magnaspin has posted an upset win in the showpiece race at Newcastle.

MAGNASPIN winning the The Coast at Newcastle in Australia.
MAGNASPIN winning the The Coast at Newcastle in Australia. Picture: Steve Hart

A stopover on the way to Queensland has delivered a $500,0000 pay day for connections of Magnaspin after the Victorian-trained gelding lifted himself off the canvas to take out The Coast at Newcastle.

The four-year-old is on his way to the winter carnival races in Brisbane, with trainers Leon and Troy Corstens opting to make the trip from Flemington via Saturday's NSW feature meeting, which was transferred from Gosford to Newcastle due to inclement weather.

"We're actually heading to the Gold Coast (on Sunday), we've got a couple of horses that we're taking up," stable representative Kevin Corstens said.

"It was a very good stop off."

The Coast (1600m) was the centrepiece of Saturday's 10-race card and went ahead on a heavy 9 track, conditions Magnaspin had faced once before when breaking his maiden at Geelong in 2022.

Ridden by Tom Sherry, the gelding was sooled forward out of the gates and had to work to cross roughie Jamberoo, eventually settling second as Rachel King took the speedy Iknowastar to the front.

The four-year-old looked to be in bother as he struggled to get on terms with Iknowastar in the straight while Williamsburg ranged up on his outside.

But under hard riding from Sherry, Magnaspin ($18) refused to shirk his task and rallied over the final 100m to make a late surge to victory, narrowly denying Williamsburg ($8.50) with Iknowastar ($7.50) third.

"I said to Tommy before the race that he's a tough horse and I said, 'when the chips are down he will really start to pull it out' so he's done well," Corstens said.

"He won his maiden on a wet track, so we were pretty confident he'd like the sting out of the ground."

Sherry credited Magnaspin's trainers with having him in top order for Saturday's race and said the horse showed great resilience to work hard early and late.

"I had to do a bit of work early, I didn't really want to sit behind Jamberoo," Sherry said.

"But once I got there, I got him a nice breather. Unfortunately, Rachel (King on leader Iknowastar) didn't take her foot off the gas and I had to chase her again, but credit to him, he fought hard.

"He was headed but he stuck his head out when it mattered."

Locally-trained Newcastle gelding Tavi Time was backed into $1.90 favouritism and tried hard but couldn't make any headway on the leaders, finishing sixth.