Burning The Clock has struck at precisely the right time.
The eight-year-old gelding is a wet-track specialist and a heavy 10 at Wodonga on July 14 proved the perfect surface for the Ardmona-trained bolter to rip past the post first.
It was special, all right, landing his second win after coming under full ownership of Ivan Lister.
A third placing on the same track a fortnight earlier gave Lister an inkling his horse had the guts to get it done.
But even he couldn’t have veiled his delight when Brendan Ward steered Burning The Clock home to win the Vale Colin Margery Handicap, carrying 58kg, for a cool $14,850 pay day.
“The start before he ran a very good race at Wodonga ... but he was just a bit wide and the two leaders got away and he couldn’t catch them,” Lister said.
“This time, he sort of had them in his sights on the home turn.
“He’s a horse that you ride back, he’s got a good sprint on him at the finish and if you ride him back and bring him into the finish he’s very competitive.”
Burning The Clock’s triumphant gallop at Wodonga arrived almost eight months after his first win under Lister’s sole control at Swan Hill.
However, it wasn’t until a scorching day out at Wangaratta in January that a suspicion Lister had was confirmed: Burning The Clock burns out when the temperature gauge rises.
“He doesn’t like hard tracks, this horse, and he doesn’t like hot weather either,” Lister said.
“When I took him to Wangaratta earlier in the year it was about 35 degrees and the humidity was through the roof — I shouldn’t have taken him — and he pulled up with heat stress.
“This is the sort of weather he likes; much cooler and wet tracks.”
Nearly two weeks have passed since Burning The Clock tore it up in the wet at Wodonga and Lister isn’t deviating from his strategy.
Give him a rest in the paddock, keep him fresh and wait for the rain to fall.
A race day at Albury on July 29 appears to be the next assignment for Burning The Clock, where he’ll advance in grade and come down in weight.
And with showers on the horizon, wet equals win in Lister’s eyes.
The two-hour journey north east may just strike pay dirt for Burning The Clock and Lister, but travel is not exactly a new thing for the pair at the moment.
“We’re under pressure at the minute, too, because a lack of track work riders at Tatura means we have to travel to Echuca every day,” he said.
“That’s always been a bit of a problem and it’s a bit of a problem in the industry.
“It just puts the pressure on you, (it’s) a few hours and a bit of cost, so it’s good to get something back I can tell you.
“The money goes out, so you’ve got to try and get a bit back.”
Burning The Clock has earned more than $200,000 in prizemoney throughout his career and, at eight years old, he isn’t getting any younger.
But Lister doesn’t care.
“He’s usually very honest; he’s placed nearly 50 per cent of all his races,” Lister said.
“The thing about this horse is he’s very sound, there’s nothing wrong with him.
“Even though he’s eight it doesn’t make much difference I don’t think — I’m not worried about that.
“He’ll have his birthday in a couple of weeks, he’ll be nine — it doesn’t matter, he carries on like a two-year-old.”
Burning The Clock may carry on like a two-year-old, but no shortage of hard graft has kept him in the race all these years.
His distaste for the hard track boils down to shallow feet, which means he must be shod in various ways to allow for optimum performance.
Even flip flops have made a cameo.
While it’s hard not to crack a smile while imagining a horse in thongs, Burning The Clock’s run in a half shoe, half cushion — aka “flip flop” — was just about as comical in Lister’s eyes.
“He had that on, but when he ran poorly on that at Wangaratta, he hit a bit of a wet patch and I think his wheels were skidding,” Lister said with a laugh.
Lister’s son, Max, has done a power of work as a farrier keeping Burning The Clock — and many others — from skidding out of control.
The worthiness of it all isn’t lost on Lister, either.
“A lot of people underestimate how important the shoeing is; it’s one of the most important things,” he said.
“If your horse isn’t shod right, it’s like wearing a shoe yourself that’s too tight or too big — it doesn’t go too good.
“He’s been shoeing a lot of trotters lately and they’ve been winning a lot all over the place at Echuca and Shepparton and even up to Wagga.
“He’s had a good apprenticeship with a lot of good farriers and he can do a lot of corrective shoeing. He’s flat out all the time.”
Like his son, Lister will be flat out for the foreseeable future.
With Burning The Clock peaking and his other horse, fellow eight-year-old gelding Court Painter, ready to run, there’s only one thing left to do.
“We’ll just look forward to the next wet track aye.”