The Danny O’Brien trained Paradee, who has been so consistent in recent starts without getting the win, got the success she deserved today when getting the better of Frosty Rocks in The Wave, the feature race at the Gold Coast, to land not only the first prize stake-money of $145 000, but also to claim the $200,000 bonus after having been nominated for the Magic Millions Race Series.
Frosty Rocks went out intent on making every post a winning one and, while Craig Williams, on Paradee, kept the leader well within his sights, when Frosty Rocks kicked strongly in the home straight it looked for a moment that Nash Rawiller’s daring front-running tactic was about to pay dividends.
This time though, Paradee, who had finished runner-up in his last two starts in Group 2 and Listed company, refused to be denied and she dug deep and stuck to her task, eventually getting past Frosty Rocks and going on to a most lucrative victory.
“It just shows that buying horses at the Magic Millions, you don’t only have to buy them for a 1200m two-year-old race … you can come up here for an 1800m race and get a big cheque,” said trainer Danny O’Brien.
“We’ll certainly look at backing her up next week. There is an 1800m race next week … and/or … there is a 2400m race next week. It doesn’t look like she has had too tough a run here today.
“It looked like the race would map like that … that Nash would lead and Craig would get the right run. It all really went to plan, albeit that we had to dig deep to get past Nash in the straight.
“It’s a good time to be in form and to be up here for these big prize-money races.”
