Toowoomba trainer Rex Lipp landed a second Group 1 win and denied David Vandyke his first with Tinto upstaging Arabian Gold in the Queensland Oaks on Saturday.
The result reversed the pair’s Doomben Roses quinella from two weeks prior, where Arabian Gold had finished 1.3L clear.
Just a day before that race Lipp had been admitted to hospital with a heart problem and spent the best part of the last two weeks, new stent and defibrillator attached, getting himself right for the Oaks.
He got up for the race, but his filly was in even better shape.
She tracked Arabian Gold throughout in midfield under an excellent ride from jockey Tim Bell.
As soon as the favourite Arabian Gold hit the front 300m from home, Bell produced Tinto who immediately burst onto the scene.
They were level at 200m before Tinto catapulted clear with a final margin of one and a half lengths.
John Thompson’s Sister Souss stuck on well for third while New Zealander Rock Diva motored home out wide from a long way back into fourth.
Tinto ran to a Timeform figure of 109, which is exactly the average of this race for the last five years.
The Queensland Oaks however has produced a wide spread of winning figures over the past decade – Scarlett Lady ran to 118 in winning the race in 2011 a year after Miss Keepsake ran to just 99.
Tinto came into the race profiling very well off her Roses second, which followed a narrow win in the Gold Coast Bracelet.
The Bracelet run proved she was Oaks material, when she was forced to sustain a wide run throughout over the 1800m and still win the race.
It landed a Timeform figure of 96, which grew by seven pounds after her game showing in the Roses.
She was the first filly since Riva San in 2008 to come through the Bracelet and the Roses.
Lipp now plans to reject the temptation of running in Saturday’s $500,000 Queensland Derby and save Tinto for a possible trip to Melbourne.
“The goal has always been the Oaks and she may go to the paddock and then perhaps prepare her for the spring,” Lipp said.
“It’s certainly put a spring in my step.”
Arabian Gold will also likely hit the paddock now after pulling up lame from the Oaks.
She was well fancied heading into the race, but there were still a few cracks in her case before the gates crashed back.
For starters the track was a Good 3 on Saturday, and she’s always been better performed with a bit of give in the ground.
Additionally, despite winning her last three heading into the Oaks, her performances had slowly but surely been tapering off.
In winning the Adrian Knox Stakes (2000m) on April 12 she returned a career-peak figure of 113.
She bypassed the Australian Oaks and went into the Frank Packer Plate (2000m) two weeks later beating the boys with a rating of 109.
In winning the Roses that figure dropped to just 105, a pound below what she ran on Saturday.
Interestingly the 106 she ran in the Queensland Oaks matched the figure she produced at Flemington in the spring when beaten 4.4L by Kirramosa in the Crown Oaks (2500m).
On a big day at Eagle Farm, Sir Moments won the Queensland Guineas prevailing in a five-way finish.
The run produced a below-average Timeform figure of 110.
Meanwhile, Moriarty grabbed a deserved win in the Eagle Farm Cup running to 118 and Sacred Star won the Magic Millions Cup, tuning up nicely for this weekend’s Group 1 Stradbroke Handicap (1400m).
