Million-dollar dreams were put on pause as Big Jack Hammer produced a mighty front-running performance to hold Tornado Valley at bay and register his first win in almost 12 months.
The track record fell as Geelong’s metropolitan night brought great Saturday night racing to Beckley Park’s revamped facilities and two of the state’s leading squaregaiters delivered a terrific duel.
While many had come to watch Tornado Valley become only the ninth trotter to tick over the million-dollar prize money mark with victory, Andy and Kate Gath’s trotter had to ultimately settle for second place, which improved the nine-year-old’s earnings to $993,897.
Instead it was Big Jack Hammer who crashed through the $400,000 barrier, making him by some margin the standout of all Australasian Premier Trotting Sale graduates, and it was a feat that was hard earned in a bold all-the-way win.
Winning reinsman Josh Aiken told Trots Vision post-race the result was a “credit to the horse, and credit to Tornado Valley as well”.
“It took our horse’s absolute 110 per cent effort to beat that horse,” he said. “And we still only just beat him.”
Victory in tonight’s Jack Rabbit Winery Sundons Gift Trotters Free For All was Big Jack Hammer’s first since his four-race winning streak during regional racing in April and May last year, but optimism had returned to the camp when the five-time Group 1 winner savaged the line last start.
“Two starts ago we were a bit concerned about where he was at in his career and conversations about retirement did arise with (owner) Domenic (Martello) and myself and (David Aiken). Last start was probably the do or die and he went super,” Josh Aiken said. “His preparation into tonight was just spot on.”
That gave Aiken the confidence to run Big Jack Hammer off the gate and park Tornado Valley in the breeze for the duration of the 2100m trot, ticking over in even quarters before stepping up with a 28.4-second third quarter.
Tornado Valley ate into the leader’s ground through the final 400 but Big Jack Hammer had enough to hold on and win by a head in a 1:58.8 mile rate, some six-tenths quicker than Garraway’s previous record (1:59.4) set in June 2018.
“We were happy enough tonight to roll the dice and it paid off,” Aiken said. “I think that racing at the top level took its toll on him. He has a bit of wear and tear now as an aged horse.
“He is a bit of a high maintenance horse, Domenic’s been super patient, we’ve had to back off him at certain times and Dom’s always got the horse’s best interests at heart. As long as he’s competitive at this level he will keep racing, but it’s just been a super team effort to get him going again.”
That will likely mean more duels with Tornado Valley in the near future as the nine-year-old resumes his million-dollar chase.
“It’s just never that easy,” Kate Gath told Trots Vision. “As much as you want a bit of icing on the cake, we just couldn’t quite do it.
“Unfortunately we have to have another crack later, but his run was still pretty good and full credit to Big Jack Hammer, he kept going and made it really tough for us, too tough. We couldn’t get there tonight, but we will have another go.”
