Win the better part of a decade in the making
IT TOOK the better part of a decade and “a hell of a lot of patience” to reach the winners’ circle, but Aussiepride has done it!
Described as a “ratbag of a horse”, Aussiepride broke his maiden status in Maryborough today much to the delight of his connections.
Owned and driven by Paula Martin, the lightly-raced son of Watch The Aces – which is trained by Martin’s partner Basil Dooley – scored at his 13th start.
“He is a ratbag of a horse which has a lot of buck in him,” Dooley said. “He is extremely excitable and quite a few times we’ve gotten close to trialling him but put him out instead because he’s a menace in the stable.
“You can’t have the radio going or motorbikes making noise…you can’t even leave him in the stable on his own for five minutes without a mate.
“This time in we thought we’d have a descent crack at him and found he is very sensitive to noise so we use deafeners to block as much sound as possible.
“In a normal season he’d be an eight-year-old now, but he hasn’t had many starts.”
Eased away from his outside of the second row draw, Aussiepride was settled towards the tail of the field as Iamawingate led from barrier four.
Forced four-wide along the back straight, the gelding sustained a strong sprint to score by six metres from Valley Of Terror, with Awesome Reactor a half-head away third in 2:01.1 over 2190 metres.
“What a terrific drive from Paula,” Dooley said. “She does all the work with him and gives him a hell of a lot of patience.
“The ability has always been there apparently, he just hasn’t had it between the ears.
“We took the tongue tie and head check off to let him relax, plus the deafeners and he seems to be better.
“He has pulled up super and I will give him a couple of days off to settle and enjoy some spring grass before looking for another race for him in about three weeks time.”