Grins night joy: Frisco Bay clears maidens in style and Ray’s hoping he’ll now go on with it

Frisco Bay might have taken nine starts to win a race but he timed his first to perfection scoring on the Night of Champions at Cambridge.

The first horse Lincoln Farms owners John and Lynne Street have raced together with their trainer Ray Green bagged an exceptional $16,500 winner’s purse when he scurried away in the stretch to score by a length.

It wasn’t quite the $450,000 which Copy That earned when winning The Race By Grins 12 months earlier but with his champ still on light walking exercise in Ballarat after knee surgery, Green was happy enough with the consolation prize.

“You don’t get many $30,000 stakes for maidens,” said Green of the race which was open to horses who were maidens last November 1 and had not won more than two races in the interim.

Green said the way Frisco Bay pounced out of the trail to down the favourite, two-win southerner Wallflower, augured well for his future.

“The tools are there to get the job done, they always have been, but he hasn’t been able to manage them until now.”

Green was happy enough to see driver Maurice McKendry cross to the lead from three on the gate but he feared what would happen when Wallflower came around and attacked for the front.

Ray Green with the race trophy and sponsors X-site event management group. PHOTO: Megan Liefting/Race Images.“I thought uh oh, he’ll he’ll fire off now but he came back nicely for Maurice.

“He went through a period where he was beating himself up, racing too keenly, but he was possibly remembering how he used to get short of breath, and that experience scares them. If they go fast again they associate that with pain and some don’t try at all.”

Green rated Frisco Bay as possibly the best two-year-old in Lincoln Farms’ barn last year, despite having bought him for just $9000 as a weanling, but his early efforts didn’t support that and then he started making a noise in his races and training runs.

It was discovered that two flaps were obstructing his airway and they were removed with relatively simple surgery.

“It wasn’t a major op but it needed doing,” Green said.

It took several runs, however, and a few patient drives when Frisco Bay was allowed to gradually work into his races, before he learned his oxygen debt wouldn’t return.

Ray Green’s pre-race analysis helped Frisco Bay’s followers into an $11.70 win dividend.And when he really let down at Cambridge at his last start, flying home late for second behind Billy The Kid, Green dared to hope his smart pacer was back.

“I was really pleased with his running 2:40.9 on Friday night. I know the track was playing fast and he got the trip but he was still good enough to pounce on the other horse and he was clearing off at the line.

“Apart from a brief moment in the run home when he ran out a bit and Maurice had to check him, he drove beautifully.

“He’s getting there and he could go on with it now. I won’t back him up next week - he’ll run at Auckland in a couple of weeks.”

Stablemate Lincoln Cove found the burden of carrying a $15,000 Boys Get Paid bet too much for him when he galloped, yet again, when mounting a run early in the run home.

Driver Zachary Bucher said it took only one touch with the whip for the horse to throw it away.

“He’s like that,” Green said. “I drove him one morning in work and gave him one little tap and he pulled up to a standstill, stood there and just looked at me.”