Fabian's only horse has veteran looking for another city success
Fabian Azzopardi's only horse bites the hand that feeds her, but any chance of him doing the same?
"She can get a bit naughty, don’t worry about that," the veteran Queanbeyan trainer says. "I had a bloke on her who has straightened her out and she has come good. She can be a bit of a handful and if you don’t watch her she’ll bite you. In fact she gets me every morning, but I’m aware of her now."
Queanbeyan trainer Fabian Azzopardi will bring Look Only back to Sydney for a rare visit on Saturday.Credit:Getty
For the sentimental ones and the good ones, a trainer will always make a little more effort. In Azzopardi's case, he has no other choice.
The retired council worker will load his float and head up the Hume Highway to Randwick on Saturday with just one horse. He has four boxes on his home track, but Look Only is the only one there at the moment.
Steeped in a family that has had success in all three racing codes, a trip to a meeting deep in winter in Sydney shouldn't be a massive highlight. For Azzopardi, his four-year-old mare is only the second horse he has ever brought to Sydney.
She won a Highway Handicap at Randwick earlier this year, part of a four-race unbeaten campaign which has set her up to resume against city-trained horses on Saturday.
Azzopardi joked bookmakers were treating her like a maiden after being shopped at $41 in early markets, no doubt a price reflected on where she's trained.
But after basking in his first city winner after three decades of training, he's not going to be too worried. Especially not after picking up Look Only for just $10,000 from a bloodstock auction.
Fabian's uncle Tony Azzopardi trained the 1984 winner of harness racing's Miracle Mile, Double Agent, and his father also had a greyhound who was good enough to win six races at Randwick.
It would take a minor miracle for Fabian's Look Only to win the same amount of races at horse racing's Sydney headquarters, but who's to say she can win't one or two more?
"I galloped her this week on the grass and she went well," Azzopardi said. "She went well last time in. She had three campaigns before that and she kept going sore in the stifle from immaturity. We gave her a good break and she turned herself around.
"I do everything myself with her bar trackwork riding. You’ve got to read them and you can see if there’s something wrong. It works."
Juan Diva and Emanate were joint $3.80 favourites with BetEasy for the fillies and mares sprint on Saturday with Look Only ($20) firming from when markets opened on Wednesday.