Ken Casellas | Photo: PACEPIX
Talented driver Maddison Brown admitted that she almost lost her grip on the right rein in the early stages of the Trotsynd Register Now Pace at Gloucester Park on Friday night.
But she retained her composure and was able to drive the $4.60 chance Ideal Tomado forward to wrest the early lead from the fast-starting Make It Happen ($7.50) and go on and score a comfortable win from the $3.70 favourite Benji.
“I fumbled for a bit and had to stop driving before I recovered, and then had to do a bit extra to get to the front,” said Brown.
“Youngy (trainer Michael Young) had given me the confidence to be positive, and it paid off. The pace was super quick going into the first corner, and I knew we had to get a breather after how hard we had gone (with a lead time of 36.2sec.). Then, a slow opening quarter of 32.9sec. helped.”
Ideal Tomado sprinted strongly to cover the final 400m sections in 28.8sec. and 28.6sec.
“Ideal Tomado always goes good in front, and he usually wins when he leads,” said Young. “However, his two previous runs from behind were very good, and last week he sprinted like a gazelle (when third behind Mandown.”
Ideal Tomado, a New Zealand-bred seven-year-old by American stallion American Ideal, has earned $97,222 from eleven wins and 15 placings from 60 starts. He has certainly blossomed in Australia after having won only once from 29 starts in New Zealand.