A master stroke by young training duo, Tom Dabernig and Ben Hayes, paid dividends when their colt FINANCE TYCOON (Written Tycoon-Darook Park) led all the way to win the Gr 3 Maribyrnong Plate over 1000m.
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They applied blinkers, and surely now we have to look at blinkers in the same light as some steroids because they helped this horse immeasurably. They were performance enhancers today.
But post-race, all connections of the winner, including jockey Luke Nolen, had to survive a scare when Nolen bailed leaving the horse to run around Flemington on his own, as they were making their way back to the winner’s enclosure.
He seemed to shy at a noise and Nolen looked to simply jump off. Alls well that ends well, however.
The odds-on fav was the unbeaten INGRATIATING who missed the kick by a length but then came home hard to just miss by a head.
All honours to the winner though who improved about 6 lengths on his Flemington debut 2nd.
He was caught unscathed after the race by the clear-of-the-course.
Said co-trainer, Ben Hayes, “He worked really well at the farm in blinkers so we thought why not give him a go and he has done a super job.
“He now has the prizemoney for us to get him into all the big races so we can put him away for a few weeks and talk to the owners about what we will do.”
The colt cost just $170,000 as a yearling and has now won $136,000 of that back.
He is a Magic Millions eligible colt, “so that is certainly a race we will look forward to,” said Hayes.
