Weld link gets Captain Maverick from Galway to Greenhalgh
By Chris Roots
It will be a year since Captain Maverick graced a racecourse on Saturday, and it was at a much different site to wintery afternoon at Rosehill.
Captain Maverick won last August during the Galway festival, a racing extravaganza that boasts the biggest bar in Ireland. So it seems right that he will carry the shamrock colours of affable Irishman Noel Greenhalgh on his Australian debut.
Captain Maverick punches through on the inside to win at Galway last year.Credit: PA Images via Getty Images
“I have never been to Galway races but I have heard it’s fantastic,” Greenhalgh said. “Galway is a great place, and add racing and it would be wild.
“The Captain won there before we got him, and it has taken a while to get back to the track.”
Captain Maverick broke his maiden at Galway under the care of Melbourne Cup-winning trainer Dermot Weld before being recommended to Greenhalgh and a group of Hawthorn AFL players.
“We had got one from Dermot that didn’t work out, and he said he would find us another horse as a replacement and this is the one,” Greenhalgh said.
“It’s the same group which owned Irish Sequel, and we are hoping he can live up to what he did and win a group race.
“Chris [Waller] has liked what he has done since arriving, but it sometimes takes a run or two for this sort of horse to show his best.
“If he can win a couple of races, it might get me to Galway.”
Captain Maverick has been posted an $11 chance in the first metropolitan race of the new season. It is a wide open affair in which Until Valhalla is the $4.60 favourite.
Greenhalgh is looking forward to the spring with a couple of recent purchases, including Birdman, which is by the same sire as Captain Maverick in Free Eagle.
At his third start, Birdman was a luckless third in the Queen’s Vase at Royal Ascot when he covered extra ground.
“We are hoping he could get to the Melbourne Cup, and on that Royal Ascot run he can certainly stay,” Greenhalgh said.
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