For rising three-year-old Rowchester Patty it was a case of making up for lost time at Mount Gambier’s time-graded meeting at Tara Raceway on Thursday afternoon.
Chasing his first win at only his eighth race start, he looked set for a comfortable win after taking over the running from odds-on favourite and perennial placegetter Paradise Five down the back straight.
But turning for home in the Bartholomew Pick 6 Maiden Stake (512 metres) and the pair was neck and neck before Rowchester Patty eventually won out by a nose win in 30.41 seconds.
Raced by the Red Card Syndicate and managed by former long-time footy umpire Phil “Bluey” Forsyth, Rowchester Patty is trained at Portland by Nicole Stanley.
The fawn dog actually spent five months with Stanley last year without seeing a race track, Mount Gambier’s leading trainer of 2017 saying it had been a case of one setback after another.
“Eventually he went back to Bluey’s Hamilton property for something like four months before returning to Portland in pretty good shape in February,” she said.
As it turned out, Rowchester Patty finally kicked off his racing career at Warrnambool in March with a third placing behind Attitude, also a winner at Tara Raceway on Thursday for Koroit trainer Peter Keane.
By Barcia Bale, Rowchester Patty is out of the Kyle Goodwin owned Spring To Wyn who was reared by Stanley. A winner of nine races, five of those at Sandown Park and The Meadows, Spring To Wyn accumulated more than $33,000 in stakemoney.
Meanwhile, Keane and the Many Winners Syndicate have enjoyed a good year at Tara Raceway with their Fernando Bale x Sisco Sizzle litter which has produced 13 winners.
Attitude, who is one of six from Sisco Sizzle’s second litter – by Thirty Talks – added to the dam’s winning tally when leading virtually all the way in the Commercial Hotel 1-4 Wins Stake (512 m) to defeat Premier Slice by five lengths in 30.06 seconds.
According to Keane, Attitude possesses a fair sort of motor but does desperately prefer to be drawn out wide. “As he showed today, he wanted to move out wide after box-rise but did finish the race off well,” he said.
Also in the Many Winners Syndicate are Keane’s sister-in-law Bev Keane, Lindsay Brookes, Gary Thomson and Graham Dix. They also race Attitude’s litter sister, the Brookes-trained Miss Leonie, a maiden winner at Warrnambool in April.