Lawson-Carroll honours Hailey with Waipu Cup win

[Wandering Eyes]

Apprentice jockey Ace Lawson-Carroll honoured his late friend Ngakau Hailey with a salute as he guided Reward Smile (Havana Grey) to a poignant win in the Northpine Waipu Cup (1400m) at Ruakaka on Saturday.

Jockeys wore black armbands in the $40,000 feature in memory of the 18-year-old Hailey, who was killed in a tragic vehicle accident in Hamilton on Wednesday. Lawson-Carroll was pleased to pick up a victory that meant much more than most.

“It’s quite special and I’m glad I could get that win for Ngakau,” he said. “I built up a nice friendship with him and really bonded with him over the last few years riding with him. He had better talent than I will ever have.”

Saturday’s special win came courtesy of the British-bred Reward Smile, who joined Jenna Mahoney’s Byerley Park stable earlier this season after winning three races and more than $1.2 million in Hong Kong.

The Havana Grey gelding had struck more than his share of misfortune in his first three New Zealand starts, but still showed promise with a close fifth at Ellerslie on May 17, fourth at Ellerslie on June 7 and a last-start fifth in the $60,000 ITM/GIB Sprinters’ Championship Final (1400m) at Ruakaka on June 28.

Reward Smile’s luck finally took a turn for the better on Saturday. After settling in third-last in the early part of the race, Lawson-Carroll set him alight and began to press forward around the outside of the field coming up to the turn.

Reward Smile loomed ominously on the outside straightening for home, and then he kicked hard with 300m to run. He pulled ahead of local hope Illicit Dreams and won by a length and a half.

“We kind of got squeezed back a little bit going into that first corner,” Lawson-Carroll said. “Once everything unfolded after that, I knew that he might not have that much of a sprint, but if you can get hm rolling and really put them away early, he was always going to hit the line really strongly.”

Mahoney was relieved to see Reward Smile’s luck change on Saturday.

“He hasn’t run a bad race since he got here, but he just hasn’t had much luck, so we were pretty confident he could perform well today,” she said.

“He just got too far back in his last run here, but Ace gave him a nice, positive ride today and he found the line really strongly.

“We’ll probably look at bringing him back up here again for the next meeting in a couple of weeks’ time.”

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