Bid battles for another 'surprise' big-race win

The Darren Bunyan trained Hit The Bid caused the second big-race ’surprise’ win of his career when landing the Midsummer Sprint Stakes at Cork today, under regular jockey Leigh Roche, at odds of 20/1.

The son of Exceed And Excel won a Group 3 Curragh juvenile sprint last August at 50/1 but since finished in rear on each of his next three starts. Today he raced with the pace and in the end scored a three parts of a length win over Go Kart

Afterwards Bunyan quipped “everybody keeps mentioning about him being a surprise 50/1 winner of a Group 3 last year but everybody forgets he was 100/1 that morning - we weren’t surprised!”

He added “it’s nice to see him get his head back in front and things haven’t worked out for him in his last couple of runs. He came back from France very fresh and well and we said we’d give him a shot at this and Leigh (Roche) again was magic on him today.

“He loves to rattle off the top of the ground but is a horse you can’t delay with, and at France the last day he boiled over. Another horse pulled a shoe off at the start and there was a 25 minute hold-up, which was a disgrace to be honest, but it’s a different country with different ways of doing things and we have to work by that.

“We’ll step him back up to a Group 3 or 2 now but there’s no programme for those horses in Ireland so he’ll have his suitcases packed again shortly. I think he’s definitely a Group 2 horse when things go right for him.”

By Tom Weekes