While not the biggest race on the calendar, trainer Tony Gollan ticked off a box with great satisfaction earlier this year when All That Pizzazz, easy to back at $11, touched off the $1.45 favourite Yellow Brick in the Weetwood at Toowoomba.
It was a race that Gollan, originally from Toowoomba, truly desired to win.
On January 1, Gollan will be looking to add another first on his already very substantial CV … and complete a famous Toowoomba feature race double in the process … when he sends out his Weetwood winner in the $750 000 King Of The Mountain over the same track and distance.
And there has to be plenty to like about his chances.
All That Pizzazz has an impressive fifty percent strike-rate (seven wins from fourteen starts) and he is a last start winner (in the Listed Bribie Handicap) … so he comes into the race in-form and with experience of the Toowoomba track to back his claims.
“He is a bit of a giant-killer this horse and he will have to be,” said Gollan, “because Rothfire’s presence certainly casts an imposing shadow over the race … there’s no doubt about that.
“He is a really nice horse. He hasn’t met a horse of Rothfire’s calibre yet, which is the biggest concern, but he ticks the Toowoomba box … we know Toowoomba is a horses for courses track. No one knows that better than me having grown up there.
“The reason we looked at the Weetwood was also all about getting him back here for this race, so it was a long-range plan to get him back here and I think we have got him here in good shape.
“If we can draw the right gate … if we can draw low … he is fit, well, in-form. He has done an amazing job. I couldn’t get him there in any better form than he is in.
“The way the set weights and penalties have fallen … we will only get a couple of kilos off Rothfire. We would probably be entitled to a lot more if it was a handicap race … but that’s the conditions of the race and we were always aware of that going into it.
“Like I said, he is a giant killer. I know one thing about him he is a real trier this horse. He is going to give us everything he’s got.
“It will be his last run for the summer.
“We are very excited about it.”
