Ripping Towards Another Big Challenge

RIPP - Photo courtesy Club Menangle.

TAKING on the best young pacers in the land won’t be the biggest challenge Ripp has faced through his short career so far.

Leviathan owner Wayne Loader today confirmed four-year-old Ripp, a horse he owns, would race in his slot in the $2.1mil TAB Eureka where he take-on the likes of Leap To Fame, Catch A Wave and others at Menangle on September 2.

Ripp will be an outsider in such elite company, but the powerful gelding is getting used to adversity.

As a two-year-old he badly damaged a tendon and missed almost a year of racing.

Just when he was his mojo and feature race-winning form back, Ripp broke the split bone in a hind leg in a paddock mishap in April, this year.

“For a young horse, he’s had his challenges,” Loader said.

“But through it all, he’s been a great patient and hopefully he gets the chance to build on the success he’s already had from here.”

It’s no surprise Loader has locked-in Ripp for his “Western Jewel” slot in the TAB Eureka, but the four-year-old pacer had to “tick some boxes” first.

“He needed surgery to tidy up the split bone and we need to make sure he got through it without infection and would be ready in time,” Loader said.

“We got two trials into him and that first-up run at Menangle the other night, so he’s done enough to lock it away now.”

Ripp resumed in the Alf Phillis free-for-all (1609m) and Menangle last Saturday where he worked home solidly for fifth, beaten just six metres, behind Stingray Tara in a 1min51.4sec mile.

“We’d much rather have gone to a lower key race at Bathurst, but the race didn’t stand-up. When we had to go to Menangle, the free-for-all was the only race he could run in,” Loader explained.

“We thought he ran well. He probably got tired a bit, but only in the last 40 or 50m which was pretty good after what he’s been through.

“We’ll run him again over the longer trip at Menangle this week and get one more run into him, either next week or the one after, before the Eureka.”

Ripp is already a dual Group 1 winner, but it was his second in last October’s Group 1 Victoria Derby which turned most heads.

That’s the night he came from a mile off Australian pacing’s new sensation, Leap To Fame, and finished just 7.1m away in second spot. Captain Ravishing ran fifth and Catch A Wave didn’t make the final of that Derby.

“That’s the run we all look back on for inspiration,” Loader said. “It showed what he’s capable of at his best.

“And it was a relief that night because he’s a big horse and he’d had a bad experience a few months earlier around the small track at Redcliffe in the Derby. It set him off a bit and he was getting too keen in his races after it.”

Ripp, trained by Bernie Hewitt, has raced 24 times for eight wins, five placings and banked $211,856.

He gives NSW its second “home town” confirmed starter in the TAB Eureka. The other is Jarrod Alchin’s My Ultimate Ronnie, who will run in the Soho Standardbreds slot for Robert Watson.