Zinku survives objection to land maiden win

Craig Brennan
Saturday, May 31, 2008

You couldn’t wipe the smile off trainer Steven Burridge’s face as he made his way down to greet Zinku back to scale after his success in the $65,000 Restricted Maiden for Two and Three-Year-Olds over 1600m on Saturday.

But his elation at victory almost turned to despair when an objection was lodged by H K Lim aboard the runner-up Good Day against Zinku and apprentice Taib Affandi over the last 50m of the race.

However a short hearing the objection was over-ruled and Zinku kept the race.

Zinku scored by a length-and-a-half over Good Day with Hi Jack (Barend Vorster) a further five lengths away in third place.

Zinku (Taib Affandi) breaks his maiden status in Race 3 on Saturday.

“I was elated for the ‘kid’ (Affandi) at winning the race but more so for the 80 year-old owners of the horse,” Burrdige said as he waited for Zinku to come back to scale.

“They just rang me out of the blue. They wanted me to pick them out a yearling, but I thought it better to put them into a horse that was a bit older and ready to race.

“To the horses credit he’s performed well at six of his seven starts and finally he’s won a race for them.

“They apparently picked me out after looking at our website. (Wife) Julie’s done an excellent job with it,” he said.

Burridge was full of praise for Affandi’s handling of Zinku until the final 100m of the event.

“I was a little concerned about what he was doing early in the straight, but he was holding him together,” said Burridge. “Once he saw daylight he sprinted quickly, but the last 100m was where he almost threw it away.

“I’ll probably have to give him a good kick in the backside over it tomorrow.”

Zinku is a three-year-old New Zealand-bred gelding by Cullen from the Nassipour mare Goldilocks. He was a $15,000 yearling purchase and success on Saturday took his prizemoney to around the $70,000 mark.