The decision to give Tomato Toastie one more run with a long-term focus towards the autumn has paid dividends for Tulloch Lodge trainers Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott with the filly scoring a gritty win.
Bott originally flagged plans to give the two-year-old a short break and aim up at the spring after she broke her maiden in midweek grade earlier this month.
However, he had a change of heart when she came through that performance better than anticipated, instead opting to press onto Saturday’s Schweppes Handicap (1400m) at Randwick.
“We made the call to come here today. We thought we’d go one more run while we can now then we can give her the good break she deserves,” Bott said.
“Rushing her around for the spring isn’t going to be the right thing to do just yet, so that might set us up nicely for a good autumn campaign in time.”
Tomato Toastie ($4.80) handled a 10-day turnaround from her last start, camping off the leader and launching her bid halfway up the straight before fending off the late charge of Crossbow ($2.70 betting fav) by a short half-head, the runner-up unlucky after being held up for clear running.
Kokatahi ($8.50) was another 1-1/2 lengths away third.
While the winning margin was narrow, Bott said Tomato Toastie showed good determination to hold on and he expected her to be much better in time.
“I’m so proud of her today,” he said.
“It was a tough effort off a relatively quick turnaround, a quick back-up off a heavy ten track and coming to a nice testing trip early in her career.
“She was out on her feet late. She isn’t an overly big filly but she has got a stack of improvement to come.”
Jockey Regan Bayliss concurred with Bott that Tomato Toastie had done an outstanding job to win two of her three starts to date as she had plenty of maturing to do.
“She has surprised everyone a little bit,” Bayliss said.
“She will be better next preparation once she fills out a bit but she is tough and tenacious and not only did she win on the heavy track over six furlongs (1200m) the other day but she has backed it up on a better track over 1400 today and in quite a smart field so she has done a good job.”
