Race Result:

1st: Alligator Blood (Waterhouse & Bott/Tim Clark) - $8.00
2nd: Mo'Unga (A Neasham/H Bowman) - $19
3rd: Zaaki (A Neasham/J Kah) - $2.70

Winning Time: 1:48.98  Last 600m: N/A

Margins: ¾L x Head

 

THE GATOR!

Alligator Blood takes out a star-studded G1 Underwood Stakes @GaiWaterhouse1 pic.twitter.com/ZJCExHr14t

— Racing.com (@Racing) September 25, 2022

 

Winning Trainer: Gai Waterhouse & Adrian Bott (Adrian speaking)

"Obviously he's had a colourful career and we feel privileged to have the opportunity to train the horse.

"Mr Harvey, to entrust us with him, and very proud of the horse coming here today and out in trip first time. To take on a quality field and the pressure was put onto him early in the race and I love the way he responded and kept fighting. Fantastic win.

Stepping out in trip: "Particularly last start, I know he was grabbed there late in the race but very early in his preparation with a nice tough run mile, and he's had a bit of a checkered run to get there, I guess.

"There was good improvement - we saw that during the week - and over that extra trip he was able to find that nice rhythm and he was able to maintain those sectionals at a good high cruising speed and he was able to find under pressure.

"It was a testing track here today and I expect him to keep finding under pressure over a bit further as well."

Enough to give the horse a go at the Cox Plate: "Most certainly is."

Winning Jockey: Tim Clark

"He got away well and as planned we wanted to show our intent early then try and get him into a nice rhythm from 1400 metres, 1200 metres onward.

"I thought he traveled really comfortably and he seemed to be doing it well within himself. Zaaki did come and put the pressure on him and eyeball him (but) just felt that my horse had a bit to offer, my bloke, when we got down to the bottom of the dip.

"I thought he responded courageously and probably just being that extra run into his prep I felt that Zaaki might have been a bit vulnerable late going to the 1800 second-up. I was always confident my bloke was going to fight hard.

"A very tenacious win. A very satisfying win.

"As I said earlier in the week, this race, apart from Anamoe, all the big guns were there. He's proven himself over 1800 on a big roomy track like this so 2040 around The Valley, bring it on."

Beaten jockeys:

Jamie Kah (Zaaki): "He was good. He just laid in terribly today. I think he wasn't just 100 per-cent."

Mark Zahra (I'm Thunderstruck): "He ran well. The winner, he was rated well, but he was there to run a place. He ran fourth, he ran well."

Craig Williams (Mr Brightside): "He has been so well placed and today there were no hiding spots and under the circumstances of the race and the opposition, even though it is disappointing that we weren't fighting the finish out, it was still a very gallant run and wasn't beaten all that far."

High Bowman (Mo'unga): "Fantastic run. Horse is on track for the Cox Plate."

Jordan Childs (Nonconformist): "He ran ok. He's just looking for 2000 metres, and maybe a little bit older and just lost that turn-of-foot. 2000 next start and I'll expect him to improve a lot."