David Hayes made one of his rare appearances at a midweek meeting at Sandown.
The trip from his Flemington stables was worth the effort as the Lindsay Park co-trainer watched Hear The Chant take out The Cove Hotel Handicap on Wednesday.
Ridden by Dwayne Dunn, Hear The Chant ($4.40) scored a short-half-head win from Brugal Reward ($3.60) with Chinelo ($15) 1-1/4 lengths away third.
Hear The Chant overcame a slow start which impressed Hayes.
“She’s only ever sat outside of the leader and trotted up in her trials,” Hayes said.
“So to overcome that start, I think she might be pretty smart.”
Hear The Chant is a daughter of Nicconi and Hayes said the filly should improve with age.
He said she had been shin sore, as a number of the Nicconi breed can be, which had delayed the two-year-old making her racetrack debut.
Hayes believes the filly will measure up to the early three-year-old stakes races.
“We haven’t really tested her very hard at all,” Hayes said.
“The family on the female side want to over-race, so we’ve spent a lot of our time trying to slow her down.
“It seems to have worked as she did her best work late.
“She might have one more race before the end of this season and then we’ll have a very fit filly for the start of three-year-old year.”
Dunn said his apprentice son Dylan had done a lot of the work in educating Hear The Chant for her debut.
“He (Dylan) probably deserves the credit in getting her to the races,” Dunn said.
“She did a lot wrong today but was talented enough to win against horses that had been to the races before.”
