Kate Hargreaves can hardly believe the feats of her gelding Well Defined, who strung together a third-straight country cup success at Boort on Sunday.
Not even a 30m handicap and a mistake at the start could stop the six-year-old, who recovered quickly for driver Ellen Tormey, sat back in the field and rounded up his rivals in the last lap to win the The Honourable Peter Walsh Boort Trotters Cup (2612m) in track record time.
It was a Hargreaves-trained quinella, with stablemate Downunder Barkers running second.
The win, in a mile rate of 2:03.1min, followed those in the Ararat and Terang features and moved the horse further clear at the top of the Maori’s Idol Trotting Championship.
“It was a massive effort to win off 30m around a tiny track like Boort, especially after he lost ground galloping at the start. It was a testament to how well he is going at the moment,” Hargreaves said.
“He had class on the others but he still had to do the work. He actually won quite easy in the end.”
The horse, who is owned by Hargreaves’ brother Brett and his partner Brooke Palfreyman, has now won 14 races for nearly $130,000 in prizemoney.
“I can’t put into words how proud I am of him, he’s just a super little horse who has done so much for me.
“He’s very special to me and this is what the game is all about.
“Credit to Ellen for the drive, she handles him superbly every single time.”
Later in the day, Jess Tubbs and Greg Sugars combined to take out the Councillor Neil Beattie and Family Boort Pacing Cup with Im Anothermasterpiece.
The talented former New Zealander scored his first victory since late last year with a 2.7m triumph in the $14,500 event.
After drawing barrier six, Sugars used a bit of petrol early to get the horse around the field and to the lead, but eventually found the top and the son of Bettors Delight was able to lead for the rest of the journey.
He set a track record mile rate of 1:59.3min over the 2250m.
Im No Outlaw (Julie Douglas/Jack Laugher) ran second, with Tubbs’ stablemate Larajay Macray (Darby McGuigan) third.
“It’s a hard track to sit back on so I sort of took the punt that I’d get a good run through at the start. The first couple of hundred (metres) looked like it was going to pan out like that, but it took a little bit longer than I had anticipated,” Sugars said of his drive.
“But thankfully it all came off in the end.”
Four of Im Anothermasterpiece’s 16 victories have now been under the care of Tubbs, with his career earnings over $530,000.
The five-year-old has climbed to fifth on the Trots Country Cups Championship leaderboard, four points behind overall front-runner Wolf Stride.
CLICK HERE FOR THE RESULTS AND REPLAYS FROM BOORT
* pictures courtesy of SouthcombeFH Photography & Art
