A week after the Joe Pride-trained Ball Of Muscle fought off Redzel in a dramatic finish to the Challenge Stakes at Randwick, the same colours were carried to victory by Easy Eddie in Saturday's Group III Maurice McCarten Stakes at Rosehill Gardens.
Warwick Farm trainer Joe Pride has well-documented love affair with the progeny of the great broodmare Parfore, so it seems fitting that Pride should train the first stakes winner in Australia by Parfore's son Super Easy (Darci Brahma) who was the Singapore Horse of the Year and whose only other stakes-winner, Prom Queen, is a Group III winner in New Zealand.
Easy Eddie came close to opening his stakes at his previous start when edged out in the Listed Takeover Stakes at Gosford but he would not be denied here, ploughing through the heavy track under Robbie Dolan to defeat She Knows (Denman) by a short-neck with All Over Bosanova (Court Command) the same distance back in third. (images Steve Hart )
It credited up and coming apprentice Robbie Dolan with his first stakes win.
"It mightn't be a big thing for a lot of people but for me, it's a big thing. I can't believe. I would like to thank Joe and his team for having the faith and the belief in me," Dolan said.
Easy Eddie advances his record to 8 wins, 4 seconds and 4 thirds from 20 starts with earnings of $456,275.
Pride said he had some concerns about the 4yo gelding handling the heavy 10.
"He may be a little bit better on the soft, but we've got to take into account that when he is a bit fitter he will get through it better," he said.
"He only had a couple of weeks off, and you would rather be coming onto a track like this on the backup or a quicker turnaround.
"I took him through the grades, he's only four so I think he can go better, I think we have still a few things up our sleeve. I haven't put him over more ground yet and I haven't had to use the blinkers again since he was a younger horse.
"He might run here in a weeks time in the Galaxy, I just want to see how he pulls up first."
A $55,000 Purchase by his trainer from the Two Bays Farm draft at the 2016 Inglis Premier Yearling Sale. Easy Eddie is the best of four winners from six to race out of the imported Halling mare Twin Town (GB).
A winner of four races, Twin Town (GB) did her racing in Australia. Her dam Contiguous (Danzig) is a half-sister to the champions Reams Of Verse and Elmaamul and to the dam of 5-time Group 1 winner Midday.
Twin Town has a 2yo colt by Adelaide (IRE) and a yearling filly by Reward For Effort.
After missing to Winning Rupert in 2017, Twin Town (GB) was exported to New Zealand where she was covered by Turn Me Loose last spring.
