Winning a $300,000 race is significant but for Blake Spriggs it meant a whole lot more when Headwall strode to victory in The Warra.
Now with two wins and a placing in three starts at the track, the Matthew Smith-trained, Warwick Farm-based galloper is quite at home at Kembla Grange and the victory in the Group 3 event over 1000-metres was as satisfying for Smith as it was for Spriggs.
“The horse had been going well but dropping back in the weights helped and Blake found the right part of the track,” Smith said.
“He’s a nice horse and there’s more to come from him and it was the race we were eyeing from the start of the prep.”
In his last four starts, Headwall had travelled from Sydney to Melbourne, up to Brisbane and then back to Sydney for four starts before this win.
For Spriggs, the connection with a former owner of the horse held sway over anything else.
“One of the owners, Maree, died of MND last year and we had the funeral at the top of the hill up there,” Spriggs said
“I really wanted to give the family something to be happy about. They’ve done it tough and they deserved to get something special like this.
“Just to let them know that their mum and their wife is still looking over.”
Spriggs went one better in this race after finishing second in the $1 million The Gong a race earlier aboard Suparazi.
Headwall ($7.50) notched his sixth career victory to add to as many placings in 13 starts with the Joe Pride-trained Dragonestone ($5) in second with the Mick Price and Michael Kent Jnr-trained Hedged ($3 betting favourite) in third.
