“Shocker”: Hawkes questions Parr’s Gold Rush ride

Wayne Hawkes firmly believes Josh Parr’s ride on Overpass in the Gold Rush was under par.

The Bjorn Baker sprinter stepped up to 1400m for the $1.5 million Ascot feature last Saturday where he jumped the $4.80 second favourite.

Parr booted Overpass out of the gates and punched him forward - as is his norm - but what occurred during the race did not sit easy with Hawkes.

He feels that Parr cranked it up on Overpass far too early which set the race up for eventual winning combo Rey Magnerio and Willie Pike as well as runner-up Cosmic Crusader and Clint Johnston-Porter.

Overpass finished third by less than half a length.

“Josh Parr, are you serious?,” Hawkes queried SENTrack & RSN’s Giddy Up.

“You’re kidding aren’t you? You’re fair dinkum kidding. It just should have won.

“If the ‘Wizard’ (Pike) rides any of those three they all win, make no mistake about it. He would have won on every single one of those horses.

“I’ll tell you exactly what happened. You’re going to 1400m, he’s raced at 14 before, but you’re going to be a bit vulnerable. Why boot out the gates like he did?

“He set it up for the winner. He booted out of the gates, he went forward, Wizard slotted in the 1:1. Why did he need to boot out of the gates?

“He doesn’t know whether Wizard is going to end up on Rey Magnerio, but he’s got his horse over-racing for a furlong or two. He’s using juice.

“He comes around the home corner and rahhhh, into him again, rolls off the track as he always does, but he didn’t need to go. He’s got beaten by the smallest of margins.

“It was a shocker. I would have been horrified.”

Hawkes admits he does not know what Baker told Parr in the lead-up, but does feel the jockey got it wrong on the day.

“I don’t know what the instructions were. It’s either one or the other - the instructions were wrong or he (Parr) got it wrong,” he added.

“We always blame the jockey because we don’t know what the instructions were. He should have won.

“If he just helped him (Overpass) around the corner and counted one, two, three, four, five and then let him go, he wins. He cost himself the victory. The Wizard was the one that got Rey Magnerio home.

“But I just cannot believe no one has even mentioned (the ride). They said it was ‘daring’. No, it was bloody stupid, it was silly.

“You took off around the corner before you should have and you’ve gone down by a nose. If that was a three kilo kid in a Benchmark-64 and it was 8/3 everyone would be going off their tree.”