Ben McKenna’s had a pretty decent week and on Friday topped it off with a moment he’s saying must be “like winning the Melbourne Cup”.
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McKenna and now-wife Nicole Thorogood tied the knot last weekend and a couple of days later, on the Tuesday, Ben’s brother Mitch and his partner Tegan welcomed into the world a son, Tobias.
But on Friday the real highlight came.
The McKenna boys and a small group of mates share a 50 per cent stake in eight-year-old Snappy Diamond, the bay mare bought for $400 by the Michael Plummer stables in Orange.
It’d be one of the cheapest horses running around in the district but after saluting in the Oak Tree Retirement Village Class 1 and Maiden Plate at $41 odds and bringing home the $11,200 winner’s cheque, it’s safe to say Snappy Diamond’s owners were tickled pink at Bathurst on Friday.
"Snappy and the wedding are on par at the moment,” Ben McKenna laughed.
"She’s become a bit of a cult hero. We call her ‘The People's Champ’. I reckon there's about 5000 people that follow her.
"She has a crack and that's all you can ask and when your brother can buy a five per cent share and it only costs $25 it’s a lot of fun.
“There would have been 200 to 300 people at the track and there was only four people cheering, me and Nicole, Mick and the strapper. It was like we’d won the Melbourne Cup.”
Having not won in her first 28 starts, Snappy Diamond started the 2000 metre stayers race at Bathurst like anything but a Melbourne Cup runner.
Then an awkward start bumped Plummer’s mare and apprentice jockey Katie Jenkinson towards the back of the 14-horse field and as the bunch rounded the Tyers Park back straight Snappy Diamond settled in on the rails.
She has a crack and that's all you can ask.
- Owner Ben McKenna on Snappy Diamond.
She maintained that position for the duration of the journey and when things began to heat up on the home turn Jenkinson made her first move.
She was checked though, and bided her time until another hole appeared and, as McKenna puts it, “she saw daylight and exploded”.
Snappy Diamond won by a length after showing an impressive turn of speed late in her first attempt at the 2000-metre distance, beating Street Poll ($81) and $2.80 equal favourite Bocain to the line.
McKenna said Snappy Diamond has shown promise over the shorter distances but just couldn’t break her maiden.
The switch to the longer format worked a treat.
"We thought she might taper off being a seven-year-old but Mick's got a great ability to get them to rebound. We said based on breeding we should bump her out to 2000,” McKenna said.
"That means she's now taking on class ones which is a big step up but we saw on Friday she can do it.”
Nick McGrath
Editor, Central Western Daily
Editor, Central Western Daily
