Jackie Barker scored an emotional win on talented three-year-old Zanda Man in the opening event at Melton on Saturday night.
Zanda Man pushed through from the second row to end up behind the leader Prioritise before making full use of sprint lane in the home straight to score by a metre from Keayang Wasabi.
The winner is trained by Barker’s grandfather Jim Barker, who was awarded the 2004 Gordon Rothacker Medal.
Zanda Man broke a lengthy metropolitan drought for the 92-year-old when he won at Melton on April 4 and added another on Saturday night.
“I think it’s over 20 years since Pop’s last metropolitan win, so it’s been a long time between a nice horse and we’re very fortunate to have this boy to train and he’s taking us on a really great ride,” Barker said.
“He’s still so green in his racing manners and he runs around so much, so hopefully when he switches on and becomes a real racehorse he’ll be matching it with the top ones later on.”
