On his 38th birthday, jockey Corey Brown received the perfect present as he struck a winning treble to mark a celebratory Sunday for the popular Australian rider.
After steering the Steven Burridge-trained duo of Dancing Tsuru and Verglatica past the winning post in earlier races, Brown saved his best for last as he capped a memorable day by saluting aboard Goodman in the biggest race of the meeting, a $125,000 Open race over 1600m.
The talented New Zealand-bred gelding fully justified his status as the overwhelming $8 favourite in the small field of seven runners with a dominant display of front-running to beat Emperor’s Banquet (Barend Vorster) with almost two lengths to spare while City Lad (Soo Khoon Beng) had to settle for third a head adrift.
Brown’s third three-timer of the season has come at an opportune time for the former Sydney-based hoop, who has hit a purple patch in recent months.
This was his 10th winner since May and he has propelled himself up the jockey’s log to sit third in the standings on 33 wins, just one behind compatriot Danny Beasley as the Australians battle it out for second place while leader Manoel Nunes retains his commanding lead at the top.
“I’ll take a winner any day, even if it’s not on my birthday,” chuckled Brown after finishing up his post-race interview.
He also maintained his formidable record partnering Goodman. The pair have chalked up four wins and have never finished outside the top-three in their seven starts together.
The statistics might have been an even better but the bay gelding has had the misfortune of coming up against star three-year-old War Affair at his last three starts and has been soundly beaten in all three legs of the Singapore Three-Year-Old Challenge.
“There’s nothing much between him and Daniel (who posted a commanding two-length victory in last week’s $125,000 Open race), just a head or a nose,” said winning trainer Laurie Laxon. “But unfortunately they couldn’t get anywhere close to War Affair.”
Nevertheless, the Kiwi handler was delighted with the performance of his two leading three-year-olds, who have combined for eight victories in just 20 starts between them. In fact, Goodman has been Laxon’s most productive campaigner so far this year, notching three wins to tie his classy filly Kiwi Karma.
“I had him in a race last week but that was cancelled. It’s alright because I got him into this race and he’s done a good job for me,” said the eight-time champion trainer, who remains in second place in the premiership and in the hunt for a remarkable title number nine.
Meanwhile, Brown was predicting big things for Goodman, who never looked like relinquishing control of the race once he moved into the lead and only needed minimal persuasion from his pilot over the final furlong as he sailed home. The winning time on the Long Course was 1min 34.98secs.
“He jumped well and took the lead early on and with no weight on his back (as the youngest horse in the field Goodman carried the postage stamp weight of 53.5kg), he kept increasing his lead at the end,” said Brown.
“He’s a lovely horse with lots of ability and he’s just been so honest for me. He’s had his excuses in his last few races and there’s more improvements to come from him as he’s still young in the mind and still does some things wrong.
“But when the penny drops, I’m 110 per cent sure he’s going to be a really good horse.”
By Alamosa out of Lucky Street, Goodman has now collected a shade over $320,000 in stakes earnings for the V-Day Stable.
