A trotter who has battled a few niggling injuries and immaturity notched his most important success at the Melton New Year’s Eve meeting.
He is the Muscle Hill gelding Rules Dont Apply, who outstayed a top field to win the Group 1 $100,000 Aldebaran Park Vicbred Super Series Final for four-year-old entires and geldings.
It was Rules Dont Apply’s eighth lifetime success and his career-best 1:57.1 mile rate for 2240 metres was put up when he had nothing in his favour, drawing gate four on the second row in a field of 12 and having to sit parked for the last lap.
Trained and driven by Eppalock horseman Anthony Crossland, Rules Dont Apply has not done a great deal of racing and from 21 starts he has won eight and been three times placed for $105,940 – an excellent return on the $20,000 paid for him at the Australasian Premier Trotting Sale in 2018.
As a two-year-old the gelding was a finalist in the Breeders Crown, while at three, he won five races and finished second in the Vicbred Platinum Home Grown Classic and as a four-year-old he scored three times.
Rules Dont Apply is raced by a large group of owners from across the state.
Part-owner Ken Connor said “he’d always showed he was going to be something special from day one. Anthony (Crossland) has done an outstanding job with him.”
Rules Dont Apply was bred by Tracey and Christopher Atkins and is the fourth foal out of Abandoned Annie, a winning Continentalman mare from the family of the champion filly Zesta and the Trotters Oaks winner Adhesive.
Other recent APTS sales graduates to win have been Tam Oshanter, who completed a hat trick at Albion Park, and Jay Bee Flex, a winner at Boort on Sunday.