“The race that stops a nation” had little effect on the Cobar Senior Men’s Swimming Club competition with a good field of 14 Yabbies lining up in the starting gates last Tuesday on Melbourne Cup Day.
In the opening race, the 30 metres handicapped sprint, Parker Cryer had the correct weight.
After a month of conditioning and racing, Cryer reveled in the wet track and galloped home to finish spot on his nominated time to take first place.
The stewards declared a dead heat for second place following a photo finish when Dave Mexted and Chris Powell both clocked in with 0.11 seconds off their nominated times.
In the 50 metres, middle distance event, the favourite, Murray Harland who comes from good bloodstock and was fresh from the spring racing carnival in Nelson Bay the previous week, took line honours with a time of 0.10 seconds off his nominated time.
Powell, on his second ride for the day, was back in the money and pleased the punters with a second place finish with 0.21 seconds off his nominated time.
Kyle Roberts was just off the pace in third place on 0.24 seconds.
In the 100 metres feature race, the dark horse Paul Swainston finished in front of the two yearlings, Henry Knight and Tom Jones.
Swainston clocked in with 0.34 seconds off his time for first place with Knight recording 0.65 seconds for second spot and Jones finished within 0.75 seconds of his nominated time for third.
Scott Toomey and Charlie Nelson, who were backed off the map, won the Brace Relay novelty event, which required swimmers to backstroke across the pool.
Toomey, trained by Nelson, recorded 0.28 seconds for the win.
James Daymond and Cryer took the bit between their teeth to grab second spot with 0.35 seconds off their combined time and Roberts teamed up with the old gelding, John Carswell, to place third on 0.70.
(And just a Point of Law, the long shot, Josh Mainey, disappointingly pulled up lame and didn’t record any podium finishes for the purposes of this article.)
