Steady Ready, the star speedster from the Tony and Maddysen Sears training yard, will defend his Lightning Handicap crown when he steps out at Eagle Farm on Saturday.
The smart son of Better Than Ready took out the 2024 edition of the Lightning Handicap with a clearcut winning margin over the more than useful Golden Boom.
The five-year-old gelding will go into Saturday’s race with a solid statistical backing.
Although resuming here after a two-and-a-half month break from race action, Steady Ready has won two warm-up trials and he has won three out of seven starts first-up.
Add in the fact that he has won four out of six starts over Saturday’s track and distance and will be bidding for a fourth win in a row … and that all adds up to pretty formidable credentials for his upcoming assignment.
“Yeah, he is really good. I couldn’t have him any better,” said co-trainer Maddy Sears. “I think he is the best I’ve seen him in a fair while.
“Does the 60kg worry me … yes and no. He has got that weight for a reason. It is a lot of weight but, at the same time, it is only 1000m. If it was a 1200m race it might be a little bit different, but he is absolutely flying and I think he is going to be very hard to beat.
“He’s had two soft trails where he has won pretty comfortably. We didn’t ask much of him in the trials and he won quite convincingly.
“I think the gate (barrier 9) will be quite good for him as well,” continued Sears. “Sometimes he can be a little bit slow away … so, at least, being there, he is not going to have horses cross him straight away or anything like that. Barrier one would be worse.”
And the stable has stuck fast with Cody Collis, keeping the apprentice jockey in the saddle. Collis has ridden Steady Ready in all of the gelding’s current three-win winning sequence and is unbeaten on the horse.
“The horse goes good for Cody. He knows him so well, so it makes sense to keep Cody on,” said Sears.
Steady Ready will go to the start on Saturday as a nine-time winner with over $1 million banked in prize-money.
He has the distinction of currently holding the Eagle Farm track record for the 1000m trip … that he tackles again on Saturday … at 55.89 seconds. That run, on December 28, saw Steady Ready became the first horse to break the 56 second mark on the ‘new’ Eagle Farm track.
His biggest win to date came in the $750 000 King Of The Mountain at the then Sears home track at Toowoomba. The stable has since relocated to the Gold Coast.
