A Good Time Is On The Cards
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday February 10, 2007
BARBARA Layt raised her hand, and the Dash For Cash filly was knocked down to the Queanbeyan grandmother for $18,000. Neville Layt, a jockey-cum-trainer of 47 years' standing, was alongside his wife at the William Inglis sale ring at Kensington when the auctioneer's gavel slammed down.
"It was one yearling I didn't look at on the Sunday when she first went through the ring," Neville Layt recalled yesterday.Maybe it had something to do with Dash For Cash appearing in the catalogue as the sire of the filly."The person that bought the filly had no money, so they put her back through, and my wife liked what she'd seen. She was with me and she was the one that put her hand up."The filly was named Cash For Cards, and today at Randwick the two-year-old is a major player in the $500,000 Inglis Classic, a 1200-metre dash restricted to juveniles bought at the Inglis Sales."She is going along great, ticking over really good," Layt said.Cash For Cards goes into the race with experience on her side. None of the 20 acceptors, of which 16 will start, has had as many starts."She has been spaced throughout her four starts," Layt said. "She has learnt what it is all about. She is also one of only two to have won over 1200m."That was at Rosehill a fortnight ago when the youngster knuckled down to the task, responded to Jim Cassidy, who was having his first ride on Cash For Cards, to score a tenacious victory."The other day she has run a class record," Layt said. "She done the hard yards from where she was and got home really, really good."She didn't know how to turn it up. As Jimmy said, 'If they all had her heart, there would be a lot of good horses running around'."Layt, 62, started riding as a 15-year-old before giving it away to take up training in 1984. From Queanbeyan, he has trained several handy horses, despite keeping a maximum of 12 in work.Helping out with the team is Layt's son Adrian, whose riding career has been slowed, as he is raising a three-year-old daughter on his own."Adrian does all the riding on the track," Layt said. "He rode her in her first start and said: 'You don't want be running her in the bush, dad, you'll just be going back to Sydney all the time'. He said: 'You are going to have a lot of fun with her'."The Layts don't mind showing people a good time and that's why Neville rounded up a group of friends to race Cash For Cards, and the trainer reckons "she has been a joy ride"."There are nine of them and for six of them it would be their first time in a horse," he said. "They are just people I know up here in Canberra. I asked if they'd like to go in and they said 'yes'."They are having the run of their life. It's a good story because they are bricklayers, farm workers, they are jack of all trades. We've doubled the purchase price already and I think she has a big future".If only Cash For Cards turns out half as good as her sire, a group 1 winner of nearly $2 million in prizemoney, about which Layt has a story."I was the underbidder on Dash For Cash," Layt said. "It wasn't the money, it was the principle of the thing." Pressed on the issue, he explained: "I was the underbidder at $70,000 and he brought $75,000. I thought the auctioneer was having a lend of me so I stopped bidding. I've regretted it ever since."
© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald