Slippin’ Jimmy took his meteoric rise through the ranks to the big stage of the Magic Millions Raceday at the Gold Coast on Saturday, where he showed his rivals a clean set of heels to win the $500,000 Gold Coast Turf Club Magic Millions Country Cup (1200m).
David Vandyke’s four-year-old advanced his record to six wins from 10 career starts with the all-the-way victory and has now netted his connections almost $400,000 in prizemoney.
Vandyke teamed up with Mark Cook and RM Racing when he paid $180,000 for the son of Pariah out of the Kenmore Lodge draft at the 2022 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale.
He said the plan to tackle the lucrative race with Slippin’ Jimmy was more than six months in the making.
“He’s always had ability and he’s a good trier,” Vandyke said.
“Mark Cook and myself planned this quite a while ago, we were aiming for this and we got here.
“We were a bit worried about the rain but he loved it.
“There are a great group of people in him and it’s such a buzz to win a race like that.”
The win continued jockey Tim Clark’s love affair with the iconic Magic Millions meeting, where he has now ridden nine feature race winners, including the 3YO Guineas on Boomsara in 2019.
He said Slippin’ Jimmy’s ability to settle, control the race in the middle stages and quicken on the rain-affected ground were the hallmarks of the win.
Joe Cleary’s King Gutho ran second and Allan Chau’s Flying Birds ran third, with both horses finishing within a length of the winner.
“David prepared him brilliantly and he’d obviously trialed up nicely against a very good three-year-old,” Clark said.
“He makes his own luck and I just wanted to hold onto him as deep as I could given he was first-up over the 1200m.
“He kicked strongly and it was a tough effort.”
Slippin’ Jimmy’s win continues an excellent season for Queensland’s Oaklands Stud based Pariah, who’s had 40 winners including stakes winners Lady In Pink and Ostraka so far.
