It has taken until his six-year-old season, but Cliff Brown finally thinks he is getting somewhere with Von Hauke, who achieved a career highlight at Moonee Valley on Saturday.
The Savabeel gelding broke a 19-month winning drought with victory in the $400,000 Group 2 Crystal Mile under jockey Ethan Brown.
It atoned for a luckless run in the same race last year, when he finished fourth, beaten 1-1/4 lengths by Plenty Of Ammo, and Brown said the win was a mark of the horse’s maturity.
“He’s a nice horse and he’s racing really tractably at the moment,” Brown said.
“I think you can see how well he was traveling as Ethan hadn’t moved and he just had to wait for the breaks.
“He was very good. He just needed the breaks and we got them.
“I think he’s really matured and everyone at home has done a great job with him.”
After failing to beat a runner home first-up in The Heath (1100m), Von Hauke made the blackbooks of many despite being unplaced in the Group 3 Sandown Stakes (1500m) before another strong finish for third in the Group 3 Headquarters Stakes (1400m) at Flemington.
He looked a potential hard-luck story again on Saturday, when he tracked up behind the leading division but with nowhere to go rounding the home turn, only to see a gap appear soon after straightening.
The $10 chance powered through that and onto a one-length win from Golden Path ($4.20), who finished a nose in advance of $2.90 favourite Rise At Dawn.
“I had him humming underneath me and I could see those horses rolling around so it was just a matter of time,” Ethan Brown said.
“We haven’t had a lot of luck lately but he stuck solid and we were able to get the job done today.”
Now Von Hauke is back in form, he is likely to be given his shot at Group 1 company on Champions Day in either the 1600m Champions Mile or 2000m Champions Stakes.