Dylan Gibbons has continued his late-season form surge with an early win at Randwick aboard classy Hawkes Racing three-year-old Brave One.
The gelding’s victory in the Quayclean Handicap (1300m) gave Gibbons his fifth Saturday metropolitan win since May 31 after he missed several months during the middle of the season to undergo shoulder surgery.
While the enforced layoff wasn’t ideal, Gibbons used the break to reflect on his riding and he put that to use aboard Brave One, keeping his cool when the gelding was caught wide from an awkward draw.
“When I had that time off I had a lot of time to think,” Gibbons said.
“You replay races in your mind all the time and lots of the time – although in Australian racing three-deep isn’t the place to be – it’s better than being three-back and one-off (the fence) in a slow race and over-racing.
“From those wide alleys you can really only beat yourself.
“It obviously helps when you’ve got a horse with ability but I think that showed today because he was able to cruise across, have cover for the first half and then from there on in it was a matter of point and shoot.”
Gibbons recently made the move from Newcastle to Sydney and has been regularly riding trackwork for John, Michael and Wayne Hawkes at Rosehill.
That experience with their team of horses, along with the trust of the trainers, helped him remain composed when Brave One was trapped wide.
“They’ve got one instruction and that’s to ride the horse and keep the horse happy. It is pretty easy when your only plan is to do exactly that,” Gibbons said.
“There were no instructions from out wide. I trusted the horse and it paid off. I gave him a chance to go and win it and he did just that.”
Brave One was regarded highly enough to be tested in stakes grade last spring and his trainer haven’t ruled out getting him back to that level.
Stable spokesman Steve Thompson said he was likely to continue through his grades for now but with a view to having the bar raised again in time.
“We will just go through his grades but he is above average,” Thompson said.
“We will try to get his rating points up and then probably look at getting some Listed or black-type into him later.”
Brave One ($4 fav) scored by 1-3/4 lengths over Secure ($5) with Lunaite ($5) another three-quarters of a length away third.
Punters who followed Brave One’s win in the Quayclean Handicap can keep an eye on his progression toward stakes class, with odds and futures markets available through the best betting sites Australia.
