David Hayes prepared his first Sydney winner in more than two years on Tuesday and plans to make it a much more regular occurrence.
Three-year-old filly Amaal came from the tail of the field to take out the Tamarama Handicap (1400m) on the Kensington track at Randwick, becoming the first horse prepared out of Hayes’ new training property at Euroa northeast of Melbourne to win in Sydney.
Hayes starts few runners in Sydney with his last winner being Nicconi who took out the Group One Galaxy at Randwick in April 2009.
Amaal had done all her preparation for Tuesday’s event at Lindsay Park Euroa, which has only been in operation for two months.
“We’ll hopefully be back here most weeks now,” Hayes’ foreman Gary Fennessy said.
“Dave has done a lot of work with this filly at Euroa and he was confident she would handle this way of going.
“We always planned for the last few years on bringing horses up here once Euroa was up and running. We can educate them on this leg there.
“The training track is designed with a Sydney chute and also a Melbourne chute so they can work either way.”
Amaal was due to make the 7-1/2-hour trip back to Euroa after Tuesday’s win but Fennessy said there was a chance the daughter of Commands could return in the coming weeks.
Ridden by apprentice Blake Spriggs, Amaal settled back in the field and let down strongly in the straight to reel in her rivals to win by a long head at just her second start.
“We had to ride her back because of the wide barrier and he rode her perfectly,” Fennessy said.
“She balanced up and was too strong.”
Hayes had two runners at the Tuesday meeting with Encoded coming in second to the Guy Walter-trained Doctor Doom in the Eastlakes Handicap (1400m).
Doctor Doom was having just his third start and after taking up the running the gelding kicked strongly to win by 2-1/2-lengths.
“He’s always shown ability and I think he’s got a good future,” Walter said.
Record-breaking New Zealand apprentice James McDonald was back in Sydney for the day and got the best out of progressive stayer Kerchings in the Coogee Maiden Plate (1800m) but premiership-winning trainer Chris Waller still remains winless in the new season.
McDonald has ridden a winner for trainer Anthony Cummings at two Sydney meetings in the past month and Cummings is looking forward to the next time the youngster heads to town.
“Next time he comes over I’ll find something for him,” Cummings said.
“He rides well wherever he goes and Kerchings got the benefit of that today.”
AAP TURF
